Ascension (19 page)

Laura ran faster, going in toward the body.  She would have to leap at just the right moment to ensure that she came close enough to make the jump and yet not too close to soar over.  She had to trust her instincts for that.  There could be no other way.

She ran forward, and jumped.  Just at that moment, she heard an enormous roar from behind her, and felt a barrage of dirt and rocks smash against her back.  The snake had gone underground just before hitting its own body!  This was it.  Laura sailed over.  When she was right above the snake, she reached down with one arm and slashed violently where she though the now-invisible cord would be.  The blade in her hand cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.  She felt no resistance.  Did she miss?  Panic gripped her as she fell toward the ground.

Another great explosion erupted right before her, sending a new shower of earth and dirt in all directions.  Time slowed when Laura saw what was there.  The snake’s great head appeared from underground, and it was right where Laura was going to land.  The snake opened its jaws wide, and Laura could smell the poisonous venom contained in its mouth.  Laura was going to fall right into the enormous mouth.  There was no way for her to change direction.  There was nothing she could do.  She had missed the cord, and the snake was still alive, and now she was going to be killed by the beast.

Laura knew it was pointless, but still extended her feet out in front of her in a flying kick.  It would make no difference, but on some level Laura wanted to go down fighting.  The last thing she would do was cower before death.

Her feet made contact with the tongue.  Immediately, the great jaws snapped down on her.  They moved so fast that Laura did not have time to react.  She felt the rush of wind as they clamped down, about to extinguish her very life…

The surface she stood on shifted, and suddenly Laura found herself falling downwards,
through
the snake’s body.  She was so disoriented that she didn’t even have time to catch herself as she fell.  She landed with a grunt on the hard ground, and looked up in amazement.

The snake shimmered.  Its entire body began to oscillate from transparent to opaque.  Gaping holes appeared in its skin, filled with a beaming light, and were closed up again.  A cry of terrifying pain echoed from its jaws, but it was not the voice of the snake.  It was the cry of the elder.  The snake’s body waxed and waned, wavering back and forth unsteadily.  Parts folded in on themselves, before coming back at impossible angles.  The body thrashed about, but it didn’t have the solidity to affect its surroundings anymore.  It went through earth and rock without touching either. 

Then, abruptly, the entire spectacle ceased.  The snake collapsed lifelessly onto the ground.  Laura watched with amazement as more holes filled with shining light burst forth along its skin.  Each one added to the already blinding brightness radiating from the body.  The light illuminated the surroundings with the power of a thousand suns, and more and more of those gaping holes appeared, until they completely overpowered the remains of the snake.  For half a second, the entire snake was nothing more than an elongated ball of light.  And then it collapsed in on itself before winking out with a spectacular flash.

The flash burned a hole in Laura’s vision.  It took a few seconds for her to blink it away.  When her eyesight was restored, she found the elder collapsed on the ground not two hundred feet away from her.  He looked… older, somehow.  More frail.  The edges of his hair were now tinged with gray, and there were lines on his face that were not there before.  His eyes were closed, but Laura saw his eyelids flicker.  He was still alive.

Yet Laura had defeated the snake.  Elation gripped her, but was quickly cut off when the elder stirred.  Laura dared not approach – not yet, and not without knowing what had happened to him.  It could be another ruse, in his attempt to lure her closer.  She would not fall for it again. 

Slowly, the elder picked himself up.  As he moved, Laura saw that his body shook weakly.  And his movements looked frail.  It was as if a portion of the years he had lived had started to catch up with him.

From his hands and knees, the elder opened his eyes.  As soon as he did that, the link to him in Laura’s mind cemented into being.  Fear washed over his face temporarily, but was instantly hidden by an unreadable mask.  The elder got up and fled.

Chapter Sixteen

~A Terrible Favor~

Laura watched him go, but did not follow immediately.  She felt him trying to shield the connection that linked them together, but she held it in place with help of the
torrial
.  It seemed easy now, compared to the strength she had to use to force it into being before.  Cutting off the elder’s connection to the snake seemed to have made him less strong.

But was she ready to follow him?  The episode with the snake proved just how much more experienced he was than her.  If she went after him, was she just rushing to some other threat?  The whole expedition was pure madness, teetering not far from the edge of a glorified suicide mission.  But she had only one thing she could focus on now.  Kill the man that was in the dream with her. 

She would have to be more careful this time.  Severing one of the three cords that pulsed into the elder had weakened him.  And she had seen him after it was done.  He looked less of the man she first met.  Those cords, whatever they were, seemed to provide a life energy to him that he feasted upon.  If she managed to sever the remaining two, would that be enough to kill him?

But there was another problem, of course.  When she saw the cords the first time, they shimmered with a lustrous light.  But the next time she looked, they had become completely transparent, rendering themselves invisible to her.  They may as well have been gone, and she wouldn’t have known the difference.  But, she took the chance and slashed at one.  That move saved her life.  It was also incredibly dangerous and foolish.

When she found the elder next time, how could she be sure that the cords would be there?  What if they remained transparent?  That would put her at a distinct disadvantage.  And what were they connected to, so far in the distance?

Yet, seeing those cords gave her hope.  Hope that she win.  Laura fixed the image of him riding the snake in her mind.  She remembered exactly where the three cords connected to his back were.  Even if the two that were left were invisible to her when she caught up to him, she could still slash them if she got close enough.

She shivered despite herself. 
Close enough
meant within arms-reach of the elder.  Her instincts were good, and they warned her of the danger coming so close would entail. 

There was another problem, of course.  And that was that the elder now knew that
she
knew of the cords.  If they were as vital to his existence as Laura suspected, he would do everything to keep them safe.  It would come down to a battle of the wits, not of pure strength, and the best strategy would win out in the end.  But was she smart enough to go head-to-head with someone who’s had the experience of a hundred lifetimes?  Of someone who had elevated himself to the very top of an already manipulative, cunning race?

She had no choice but to try.  After all, she was already here.  She—

A sudden shift in the connection interrupted her thoughts.  In the blink of an eye, the elder had crossed a great distance. 
What?  How
?  One second Laura felt him in one place, running from her, and the next, he was dozens of miles farther.

It was not just that he was using his
Vassiz
speed.  She thought that he had actually manipulated the world around him.  Laura
felt
what he had done through the connection, very faintly, like the delicate taste you imagine exists when you smell a delectable aroma.  He had
shifted
reality in one direction while going the other.  No, that was not quite it – she had done as much when scaling the mountain.  It was something stronger, something that moved him over a distance she could not have followed easily.

She prodded at the connection gently, trying to catch the wisp of a shadow that could clue her in to what he did.  It was like trying to figure out a word that was caught on the tip of your tongue.  She grasped at it and missed, catching nothing.  Frustration boiled up inside of her.  She tried again, and missed.  It was like catching smoke with her hands.  The process was maddening.

She tried again, and missed.  She tried once more, and missed again.  A growl sounded in her throat.  She tried again, and caught absolutely nothing.

Then, just when she was about to give up, the process revealed itself to her.  And the elegance of it was so simple that Laura felt ashamed she had not thought of it herself. 

The elder did not shift reality in one direction to make the jump.  Rather, he
folded
it in front of him so that one step forward would take him many miles away. 

Laura knew she could do the same.  With the
torrial
’s help, perhaps she could even do it to a greater degree than the elder.  It would make the chase much easier.

Laura stood up, and in that moment, she realized something that gave her immense confidence.  The elder was no longer the one chasing after her.  She was no longer the one running.  Now,
here
, in the dream, she was the hunter, and the elder was her prey.  She had found his weakness, and shown herself equal to even the greatest nightmare that he could muster.  She set out after him.

~~

Laura followed as the elder fled.  She drew on the
torrial
and pinched reality together in front of her.  Then she stepped through the fold.  One step took her many miles away.  The elder must have sensed her coming, for he started running with ever greater haste.  She felt him folding reality before him, transporting himself over great distances in the blink of an eye.  But she was more than his equal for that.

Suddenly she stopped, remembering Gray.  Was he still looking for her?  He must be.  Would he know where to go, now?  That was unlikely.  Not with the way she was travelling.  But could she in good conscience bring him along with her to more danger?  Then again, if he were looking for her where she said she would be, and was unable to find her, that would distress him even more.  She turned her attention away from the elder momentarily.  She had to get Gray.

In her mind, she imagined the same connection forming between her and Gray that existed between her and the elder.  It would allow her to know where he was, and vice-versa.  She focused, willing it into place.  And it snapped to existence easily.  Without any trouble, she knew exactly where he was.

He was much closer than she expected.  In fact, it felt like he was less than a mile to the northeast – much closer than he should have been if he could only travel on his feet.  It seemed like he had some control over this place too, and used it to go toward her.

Laura turned toward him, ran forward, and drew on the
torrial
to fold the land in front of her.  It happened instantly.  In the flash of an eye, the landscape before her simply cut off and became another, with no transition between the two.  Laura stepped over the edge and let go.  She felt the world rebound back to its former shape, and when she looked back, she saw new land behind her.  Land she had not crossed, but skipped over.

There, not a hundred feet away, was Gray.  And he was barreling toward her with all the speed he could muster.  Laura ran to him.  He nearly knocked her over when they met, standing on his hind legs to allow her to embrace his tummy.  On contact, the connection between their minds formed.  Not the one that told Laura where he was, but the special one that allowed them to share thoughts and emotions, images and memories.

It was not as strong here as it would have been in the real world, but it was enough to communicate.  Laura felt
elation
stream in from him, tinged only slightly with the barest hint of
worry
.  She smiled.  Gray was just happy to see her, with no thought to his own wellbeing or anything that had happened before.  There was no anger for her inadvertently misleading him, no distrust from coming to the forest and not finding her there.  Just happiness at seeing her.  Even the hint of worry that seeped in originally was now gone.

“You came here for me,” Laura told him, “and I won’t forget that.  You saved my life many times before. Where I have to go, you may have to do so again.  Or I may need to do it for you.  But whatever we face, we’ll do it together, won’t we?”

Gray roared loudly in reply, and then, in complete contrast, reached over and grasped Laura’s shoulder gently in his jaws in a display of affection.  Laura smiled, and patted his head.

“I don’t think you can keep up with me,” she said, thinking out loud, “but I do know of a way we can get to where I need to go together.  Stand still for a second, and don’t be alarmed.”  She sent the same sentiment through the connection between them, and waited for
understanding
to come back through.  Once it did, she closed her eyes and drew on the
torrial
.