torg 01 - Storm Knights (22 page)

Thratchen plugged into the console, using one of his built-in finger jacks. He studied the cybernet, discovering that the transference cylinder had syphoned enough energy from the stormers to complete a second leap into the cosmverse. It was probably a safety feature, Thratchen decided, so that they could pull Dr. Hachi back after a time. But it would not serve that purpose. Instead, it would send Thratchen to wherever she went.

"I don't know where you disappeared to in such a hurry, Mara," Thratchen said aloud. "I couldn't drag that data from Dr. Kendal's mind before he crashed. But I am coming after you. I want to discuss some things with you. I want you to tell me how you discovered we were coming here. And then I want to find out about this use for stormers you have discovered." Thratchen fondled a cable that connected a dead stormer into the cyberdrive.

He could return to his own cosm. There was power waiting for him at the side of his High Lord. They might have failed here, but there was a major raid going on elsewhere in the cosmverse. In a few days the Sims were to join that raid as partners of the Gaunt Man. All Thratchen had to do was invoke the black cube and a bridge thread would arrive from his High Lord.

But there were other ways for him to gain power. Hachi was one of those ways. Thratchen set the automatic controls and allowed the cyberdrive to power up.

Without a second look, the Sim stepped into the transference cylinder as cascading energy filled the hollow space. Then, like Dr. Hachi Mara-Two before him, Thratchen was gone.

69

"Who are you?" Father Bryce asked the young woman in the black jumpsuit.

"Dr. Hachi Mara-Two," said the woman.

"Are you handling Tolwyn's — Miss Miller's — case, Dr. Maratu?" asked Bryce.

"Dr. Hachi," the woman corrected, then added, "Yes, I've just taken over."

"Pardon me, Dr. Hachi," Bryce apologized, acknowledging the young woman's correction of his use of her name. She nodded and passed over the matter as Bryce tried to identify the slight but puzzling accent in her voice. He examined her facial features. She was striking, but he wasn't sure if it was because of her wild mane of hair, the makeup, or something deeper that showed in the way she held herself. The barely noticeable epicanthic fold of her eyes hinted at Asian ancestry, thus explaining the fact that her family name preceded her given name. And she was young, very young in Bryce's thirty-four-year-old eyes.

"You're very young to be a doctor," he said to Mara. "Prodigy," she explained shortly, her attention focused on Tolwyn.

"Are you ready to go, Tolwyn?" Mara asked, using the name she had heard the men use when they had spoken to the woman.

"Yes."

"Wait!" said Bryce as Tolwyn picked up the vase with the crys flower. "You don't know how to get there. You have no way to get there."

"Yes they do, Father," said Rick Alder, finally speaking up. But the words were not ones Bryce wanted to hear.

"What are you saying, Rick? Certainly you aren't going to join these two in this crazy business?"

"Who's to say what's crazy anymore, Chris? But I believe Tolwyn's dream means something, and I want to know what that something is. Because if it means there's a way to get at those monsters that destroyed New York, then I want to be a part of that. I promised myself and a poor young woman that I would be a part of that."

"Us, too, Father," said Coyote. Rat, standing beside him, nodded.

"We will find out where it is, Christopher Bryce," Tolwyn said. She turned to leave.

"Wait! You need some clothes," Bryce said.

Tolwyn looked down at herself. "Yes. If my dreams are any indication, the gorge is in very rugged country. Do not worry, I will find clothes."

"Wait," said Bryce again.

"Now what?" asked Mara, the impatience of youth evident in her voice and posture.

"Wait ... for me," said Bryce finally. "That is, if I'm invited ..."

Tolwyn smiled and threw her right arm around Bryce's shoulders, hugging him to her chest. "Good," she said, "Now we are almost complete."

Bryce didn't really want to go on what he thought was a foolish, dream-inspired quest sanctioned by some oddly dressed teenager who claimed to be a doctor. But he didn't want Tolwyn to go without him. She might have some of the answers he needed. He believed Tolwyn had come from life, through death, and to life again. He needed to know what came after life or, maybe, what came between lives. He needed to know from someone who had been there, not from unproven dogma. He needed something to believe in. More than that, he needed to know there was something he could believe in, something true that he could trust, something in which he could have faith. And so Bryce once again faced his great question, a question that had driven him into Holy Orders and then most of his adult life in an attempt to find its answer.

But this time there was someone who might have his answers. She didn't know them herself yet, but she would — if and when she remembered who she was, where she had come from, and how she had gotten here. And that someone, possibly with the answers he sought, was about to walk out the door and chase after a dream. Bryce had to be with her when her memories came back, for in those memories he knew he would find some, maybe all, of the quest that was his life. He knew Tolwyn would not stay here with him. So, he must go with her.

"Stay here," he said, then added as Mara glared at him, "Just for a little while. We'll get some clothes for Tolwyn, some supplies."

He paused and looked at Tolwyn. "Will you wait?"

Tolwyn nodded. "I can use your help, Christopher Bryce. I will wait."

"Coyote, Rat, let's go see what we can dig up."

"I'll go prepare the van," Alder said. Then he and the other men exited the room, leaving Tolwyn and Mara alone.

70

"Stop the vehicles."

The order came from Congressman Andrew Jackson Decker, but it wasn't necessary. The drivers of the truck and two jeeps stopped of their own accord when they saw what lay before them.

"What is that?" asked Private Rider, Decker's driver. The congressman stood up in his jeep and raised binoculars to his eyes.

Ahead was a storm front that spread out across the horizon from sky to ground. Crackling bolts of light-

ning played throughout the rolling clouds and falling rain. And more, the landscape within the storm seemed to constantly shift and change, but Decker assumed the effect was an optical illusion caused by the fierce weather pattern.

"Sergeant, what do you make of this?" Decker asked, speaking to the soldier in the jeep that pulled up beside his.

"According to our last intelligence, that's the border of the zone of silence," said Sergeant Lewis. "Do you think that storm has anything to do with the invaders?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, sergeant," Decker said, "but it's a good bet. Storms seem to be the common element in all this."

Decker and the soldiers watched in silence for a few moments, each thinking his own thoughts. Then Decker said, "We won't find out anything just sitting here, that's for certain. I had a coach once who told me the only way to do something was to just do it. Sergeant, let's do it."

"You're the boss, congressman," Lewis replied. Then he gave the order. "Let's move out!"

The procession moved forward, rolling slowly toward the edge of the storm. Decker looked back once, but the Harrisburg skyline was lost in thick clouds. So he focused his attention forward, trying not to let the raging wind or the lightning disturb him.

"Are you sure about this, congressman?" asked Rider, yelling over the roar of the wind.

"Not even a little," Decker called back. "But sometimes you've got to go with the long shot."

The edge of the storm loomed closer, and Decker saw that it was a virtual wall of swirling cloud. It reminded him of a tornado, except that it was stationary, in so far as only the clouds within the wall moved, not the wall itself.

"It's like the Wizard of Oz, congressman."

"What a wonderful thought, Rider."

Then they were through the cloud wall and into the heart of the storm. The road beneath them bucked and twisted, becoming ribbon thin and then billowing out like a sheet. Rider kept the jeep steady and moving straight ahead, even as the road spun around. At times they found themselves upsidedown, at others driving on their side. But Rider simply drove, maneuvering only when a bolt of lightning got too close or a fissure opened in the ground ahead.

Decker tried to keep his eyes forward. He wanted to ignore the unrealistic vista around the jeep. But they darted this way and that of their own accord, trying to catch the land in the act of its changing dance. To one side, he saw whole mountain ranges rise up and fall in the blink of an eye. To the other, he watched as lightning smashed into the ground, spewing forth unnatural shapes that scuttled away from the vehicles.

"What is happening here?" Decker screamed, but if Rider heard him he gave no indication. More likely, Decker's words were pulled away by the wind. The congressman saw that Rider's knuckles had gone white from the tight grip he had on the wheel. He wondered if they would be able to stay sane in this place. He prayed they would be out of it soon.

Rain began to fall. Large, ugly drops of water splashed across the windshield and hood of the jeep, leaving vulgar stains. Then, as Decker watched, the drops shifted into small humanoid forms. The forms were shaped like the letter "x", with two upraised arms and two shuffling legs. They soon covered the hood and began climbing over the windshield.

The congressman grabbed a machinegun from the rear of the jeep. He stood up, ready to bash the forms as they entered the vehicle. The small shapes were silent, plodding, and that made Decker more nervous than if they had been screaming madly.

"Just keep driving, private," Decker ordered.

The first of the water forms reached over the windshield. Its headless body was a storm in miniature, full of swirling rain and muck. It worked one wet arm and leg over the top of the glass.

"Get off my jeep!" Decker shouted, swinging the machinegun like a baseball bat. The stock passed through the form with a splat, scattering the rain and muck in all directions.

Then the raindrop forms advanced en masse, splashing over the windshield faster than Decker could batter them apart. They clung to the congressman and the soldier, pounding on them with a hundred tiny fists. No single punch hurt, but Decker knew that in great numbers the forms could kill them.

"We're going to drown, Decker!" Private Rider shouted. Decker could hear fear creeping into his voice.

"Just drive, soldier! We must be reaching the edge of this storm!"

The raindrop forms almost completely covered Decker now, crawling wetly up his body toward his head. One wet fist touched the skin of his cheek, and he tried to recoil from it. It felt slimy, dirty, deathly cold. They were trying to drown them! Now panic shot through his body, and Decker had to hold himself in check or he was certain to leap from the jeep. And if he left the jeep, his island of reality in the madness of the storm, then he would be lost.

Water arms and legs smacked his face. He could feel the cold of their inner storms. They covered his mouth and nose, and suddenly Decker was fighting for breath. He slipped back into his seat, letting the weight of the creatures pull him down.

Then the jeep burst through the wall of clouds. As soon as it did so, Decker could feel a change. The shifting landscape was gone, replaced by a steady horizon. The water forms held their grip for a moment, then they collapsed into a puddle underneath Decker's seat. He was soaked, but he could breathe again, and he sucked in great gulps of air.

"Good driving, Rider," Decker gasped, "But how you were able to keep going I'll never figure ..."

Decker stopped. The soldier beside him was slumped over the steering wheel. His uniform was dripping wet, but he wasn't moving. Decker felt for a pulse. There was none.

"Oh, Rider, why'd you go and die on me?" Decker moaned, noticing that Rider's leg had locked down on the gas pedal in death, explaining why the jeep had continued forward even though the soldier had died. He realized rather detachedly that the jeep should still be moving, but for some reason the engine had given out.

He sat back in his seat, weary from the trip through the storm. But he looked around, trying to see where he was. The landscape was familiar enough. It looked like the Pennsylvania he knew. But something wasn't right.

The congressman turned when he heard the other vehicles behind him. The truck and other jeep leaped out of the storm. But there was no roar of power from their engines either. There was only the sound of their wheels rolling to a halt. "I guess we made it into the zone of silence," he thought.

Then another sound caught Decker's attention. Emerging from the forest ahead of them was a huge lizard with spines along its back and a long tail. It crashed out of the trees with no regard for the damage it was causing. But it wasn't walking toward the vehicles, so Decker only sat and watched it.

"Well, Rider," he said to the dead man, "I guess we're not in Pennsylvania any more."

71

Traveling without a bridge thread! The sensation both exhilirated and disturbed Thratchen at the same time. He remembered early experiments of the Gaunt Man, back in the days when he and his High Lord both served the powerful lord of Orrorsh. The Gaunt Man tried repeatedly to hurl his advance agents to other cosms by using dimension-spanning portals. Only a handful of the poor beings survived, returning to Or-rorsh as bent, twisted parodies of what they once were. It was as though they had been ripped apart, and then put back together by a child who had never seen what the undamaged whole looked like. Arms were on the same side of the body, legs were spaced further up the waist, internal organs were hung on the outside.