The Last Protector (57 page)

Sparks and smoke surrounded him, fire and electricity flooded through his body as his claws pierced the Orb's surface. This was worse than riding the lightning-bolt, much, much worse. He felt himself slipping down, as his hands refused to grip the slippery membrane. Then, with a sudden jerk, the bony spikes on his knuckles snagged, and he hung by his right hand from the enormous violet balloon. Fighting the pain and muscle spasms, summoning all his strength, he pulled. The sharp, bony crown atop his head pressed against the Orb's surface, stretching it. He flailed with his left hand, finally piercing the Orb's surface with a claw. He pulled as hard as he could with both hands, and in a storm of sparks and fire the point of his crown tore through the elastic membrane.
"Honey, I'm home,"
he whispered. Those big, deadly, terrible, beautiful claws got a grip on something, and gritting his teeth into something that resembled a smile, he hauled himself into the Orb.

He felt like he had fallen into a killer river rapid, a roaring violet whirlpool that pulled him first one way, then the other. The cloudy fluid limited his vision to a few feet, and bits of sharp-edged black ribbon tore at his skin as he pushed his way through the storm. The shadow of the shark, large, dark and sinuous, moved through the murk, always just beyond his vision. For a terrifying moment he thought he was drowning—then he realized that whatever strange fluid filled the Orb, he could breathe it, if indeed he even needed to breathe. Bellowing his defiance, shredding some of the bigger clumps of ribbon, he forced his way toward the center of the Orb.

He suddenly heard voices—tens, hundreds, maybe a thousand of them, all whispering the same question:

Why do/why do you do this/what do you hope to find here/what is here for you?

His lips trembled uncontrollably. “N-N-Na-Nalll-i-a,” he stammered.

Why do you/why torment/why torture/why hurt so/why suffer?

"B-b-be-because-I-I-I"

You/you will only/only die/die here/why/why

"I-I-I"

The voices joined for an instant.
Why do you suffer and die for one you cannot have?

He shouted, loud and clear,
"Because I love her!"

After that, the voices said no more.

Scrornuck plowed through the maelstrom, heading by instinct toward the light at the Orb's center. He emerged abruptly into a silent, still, clear space that seemed larger than the whole Orb had appeared from outside. His heart jumped, for ahead, at the brilliant center of the Orb, he saw Nalia, surrounded by a network of luminous white ribbons that tied to her hands, feet and hair.

He saw something dark in the distance, something big—no, something enormous—circling, growing, until it suddenly emerged from the violet haze: the shark, grown to titanic size, all black but for its glowing orange eyes. The monster fish flicked its tail and headed straight for Nalia, opening a mouth that could swallow her whole, lined with enough teeth to grind her to hamburger on the way down.

Scrornuck kicked and paddled desperately toward the monster fish. It saw him, turned, swam past Nalia and charged. Again, the shark's eyes met Scrornuck's, and again, for a timeless instant, he saw a vision:

Hunger. A tiny and shrinking world. Death approaches.

Salvation. Contact with the other Orbs. Food. The shark gorges on minds thrown into the Orbs as sacrifices, heretics, slave soldiers. It grows fat, sleek and powerful.

Catastrophe. In an instant of confusion and chaos, the Olympus World Orb collapses on itself and dies. Silver hair and blazing blue eyes.

Disaster. The Orb of political punishment explodes into the vacuum of space. Behind the faceplate of a blue helmet, the shark sees blonde hair and deep blue eyes.

Terror and agony. The Orb housing an army of slaves is twisted to shreds as a world dies. Through the eyes of the slaves’ master, the shark sees the two Orb-destroyers.

Desperation. Contact. A tangle of minds, outside the Orbs and useless as food, but maybe, just maybe open to manipulation. The shark reaches deep, explores dark corners, finds resentment and anger and pain.

Determination. A plan: exploit the darkness. Nurture the desire for vengeance. Lure the survivor to Taupeaquaah.

Feed the shark.

Scrornuck forced himself to look away from the shark's eyes. He shook his head for an instant, and a savage howl rose in his throat, one that combined instinctive revulsion with every battle-cry he'd ever known. Screaming his hatred, he charged the beast.

The shark attacked, snapping at Scrornuck with its enormous jaws. The skin of the great fish was like sandpaper, and when it struck him with its sharp-edged fins he bled, clouding the “water” around him. Wishing he still had Ol’ Red, he fought back, ripping into the beast's side with claws and spikes. The shark's wounds “bled” clouds of multicolored ribbons, which coalesced into tiny, brightly-colored fish and swam away.

The monstrous fish hammered him with its enormous tail, sending him tumbling end-over-end. For a moment he was disoriented—then he saw the shark charging, its mouth open, showing row after row of razor-sharp teeth. Desperately, he ducked beneath the fish, and as it passed over he jammed his arm-spikes into its soft belly. A cloud of colored ribbon streamed from the wounds in the great fish as it dragged Scrornuck along. He pulled his legs up and speared the fish with the spikes growing from his thighs. The shark shook and twisted, trying to throw him off, as he slowly worked his way around its side and up onto its back, tearing at its flesh.

He got a brief glimpse of something silver and blue, separating Nalia from the luminous white ribbons that bound her to the Orb's center. Seeking a better view, he raised his head—and with a convulsive twist the shark tossed him off. By the time he regained his bearings, the great shark had disappeared into the cloud of ribbons and swirling fluid surrounding the Orb's center. He looked ahead, back, left, right—and then, from above, the shark suddenly appeared, diving straight down, mouth wide open. He pulled desperately at the water, but it was too late—he felt the shark's teeth tear his flesh as the monstrous fish swallowed him whole.

In utter blackness, he slid into the belly of the beast. Its digestive juices stung and burned his wounds, and the contractions of its gut crushed his ribs and twisted his arms and legs into agonizing positions. He fought back with everything he had, but as the beast's stomach squeezed, tighter and tighter, he knew he was weakening. He tasted blood in the water and knew it was his own, he smelled something foul in his lungs and knew he was slowly suffocating. In the peculiar reality within the Orb it seemed the microbots were unable to heal his wounds, and it would only be a matter of time before the beast squeezed the life out of him. I'm going to die in here, he thought.

No! he told himself, and the thought came with such ferocity that he drove his claw-tipped fist deep into the monster's gut, through the stomach lining and into the soft tissues beyond. Not until you save Nalia! He dug his claws deeper into the soft tissues, grunting in satisfaction as he felt the fish squirm. There had to be a nerve, an artery, something vital in there.

And then, to his amazement, he heard music, coming from somewhere outside the shark's body—first one voice singing, then a few, and finally an enormous choir, all in perfect harmony.

With new energy, he dug his claws into the beast, ripping at its flesh until he thrust his fist through its skin. Brilliant white light streamed through the wound, and outside he saw a swarm of colorful fish, hundreds of them, moving in perfect synchronization as they devoured the immense shark. Prying the beast's ribs apart, he squeezed between them into the light. He recognized the music now—the song he'd played on the Setron at Darklord Castle, the sweet melody that had encouraged the Army of Taupeaquaah to fight Lord Draggott's slave warriors.

The great shark squirmed, thrashed, twisted, desperately trying to escape the cloud of tiny, colorful fish. Scrornuck joined them, ripping out chunks of the shark's flesh as he clawed his way up its back. Finally, he reached the huge head and stared down into those fiery orange eyes. Instinctive rage filled him, and he slammed his fist into the center of the beast's head, over and over, harder and harder, screaming his hatred for this abomination, not caring that his knuckles were shattering—and then he felt the skull crack. He summoned up the last of his strength for one more blow, the hardest yet. The shark's head split open like a rotted pumpkin, and a tangled mass of black-as-death ribbon oozed forth. He attacked the vile mass, shredding it with his claws until nothing remained but a cloud of black dust that slowly drifted away. His rage finally spent, he looked with satisfaction into the shark's dark, lifeless eye-sockets. A moment later, what remained of the monster's head vanished, torn to nothingness by the swarm of colorful fish. Scrornuck had the feeling that something very old and very evil had finally passed from the world.

He looked for Nalia in the place of luminous white ribbons, but she was not there. Then, he saw a sudden flash of silver, blue—and white. He looked down into his open arms. Nalia looked up with wide eyes and smiled.

"I knew you'd come,” she said.

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"I love you, Nalia,” he said, and for what seemed like forever they floated in a tight, wonderful embrace, gazing into each other's eyes. He had lost his Setron and his sword, he was a spiked, horned reptilian monster, he was bruised, battered and bloodied from the fight of his life—and yet, as he and Nalia slowly drifted away from the Orb's center, he was the happiest man in the world.

At the center of the Orb, a cloud appeared, silver with two spots of blazing blue. Ribbons of luminous silver from the cloud met ribbons of brilliant blue-white, and within seconds the scene had become too bright to watch any longer. Whatever was happening, Scrornuck knew it was good, and that it was time he and Nalia departed. He held her close, and kicked in a direction that instinct told him would take them out of the Orb.

The snowstorm of black ribbon was gone from the Orb's outer regions, replaced by what looked like placid schools of brightly colored fish, all swimming toward the light at the center. He looked back, and saw the light getting brighter and larger as the swarms of fish swam into it. Though he was certain that something very good was going to happen, he was just as certain he didn't want to be inside the Orb when it did. He kicked harder, and Nalia started kicking as well.

The reached the boundary, a membrane that shimmered in the brilliant light coming from the center. Recalling how painful entering the Orb had been, Scrornuck flinched involuntarily. But this time, the passage was no more difficult than breaking the surface after an underwater swim. As the last school of little fish disappeared into the light behind them, he and Nalia slipped out of the Orb.

They drifted slowly away from the great purple bladder, into the surrounding darkness. Electricity still crackled on the Orb's surface, and the laws of nature still seemed to be suspended in the Orb's vicinity. The pair drifted, weightless, waiting for something to happen.

The light at the heart of the Orb flashed, a blazing blue-white that seemed to burn away all the ominous purple. It brightened further, blowing away the darkness that had surrounded the Orb like a bruise on the sky. Then the light faded, and the Orb hung against the beautiful blue Khansous sky like a full moon seen by day. Nalia smiled, as if she'd heard something beautiful.

Gravity returned, and they suddenly found themselves falling. Scrornuck twisted, trying to see what was beneath them, and they began to tumble wildly. Nalia wrapped her arms around his neck, he extended his arms and legs, and after a few terrifying seconds they reached a stable position: he fell in a spread-eagle skydiver's stance, while she rode on his back as if he were a horse, her arms around his neck and her knees gripping his hips.

Oh, crap, he thought, for he could now see exactly where they were—in the air, a good two miles above the dunes of the Compact Desert. The cold wind grew stronger each second as they fell. Scrornuck threw back his head and howled in despair and frustration—it seemed so pointless to have rescued Nalia from the Orb, only to have them both fall to their deaths. But short of sprouting wings—

The pod-like bulges on his shoulders stirred.

Wings? The changes the microbots had made to his body—the claws, the spikes, the bony crown on his head—had each arrived just when it was needed. Could there be one final surprise hidden in the bulges on his back? Having no better idea, he prayed for wings.

And his prayer was answered.

He felt a sharp, tearing pain as the pods split open and a splendid set of wings, as colorful as any butterfly's, unfurled around him. Strong cords on each wing's tip purposefully wrapped around the spikes protruding from his knees, while another set of cords wrapped around his arm-spikes. “Hang on!” he shouted. He felt Nalia's arms tightening around his neck and her knees squeezing his hips—and with a loud
thwop
the wings filled with air. In an instant they were no longer falling, but gliding through the brilliant blue sky. The world of Greater Khansous lay beneath them: the white spires of Taupeaquaah, practically glowing in the afternoon sun, the green of the grasslands giving way to the deeper blue-green of the forest, the intricately scalloped dune field of the Compact Desert, starkly beautiful in sun and shadow. And there in the desert, a bee-line of dust, with a rapidly moving object at is head: the skimmer! Jape had seen them.

"Look at me!” Scrornuck cried, laughing joyously, “I really
am
a
scrornuck
!"

Nalia hugged his neck harder and shouted back, “You are just
full
of surprises!"

They circled a few times, descending slowly, and made a gentle landing beside the skimmer. Scrornuck threw his head back and shouted triumphantly at the sky, “Woo-
hoo!
What a ride!” He sucked in great gasps of air, as rivers of sweat soaked his kilt and poured down his arms and legs. He kicked off his oily, scorched boots and danced barefoot in the warm sand. Jape offered him a jug of water, and he emptied it in seconds. “Well,” he said between breaths, “did we save the world yet?"