torg 02 - The Dark Realm (23 page)

Where should he begin? Decker tried to sort out everything that he had experienced over the past few weeks. Finally he decided that the best place to start was at the beginning.

"Sit down, John," Decker urged. "This may take a while."

94

Bryce and the others set up camp in the clearing where Kurst had secured the horses. They had a small fire going, and Praktix was covered in blankets beside it. Mara was still with her, doing what she could to ease the dwarf's pain. The priest sipped hot coffee and watched as the other dwarves patrolled the perimeters of their camp site. They were extremely military in their mannerisms and, after a brief inspection, Tolwyn had declared that the dwarves would sound the alarm before anything got within twenty meters of the camp.

That's why it came as such a surprise to him when Djil walked out of the jungle and into the circle of light cast by the fire. Kurst, sitting beside the priest, quietly said, "Do not blame the dwarves, Bryce. The aborigine walks where he wants. He is like the jungle itself, moving with it instead of through it."

Bryce didn't understand Kurst's words, but he gathered that the hunter was impressed by the shaman. Djil sat by the fire. He had discarded the furs he wore when they arrived in Orrorsh realm, for the night was warmer here. Sitting there, illuminated by the flickering flames and free of the bulky furs, Bryce could see how skinny the aborigine was. Nothing but flesh and bones.

"My name is Djilangulyip," the shaman said in a sing-song voice. "I've seen a lot of things as shaman to my people. Tonight I want to tell you about some of them."

He looked slowly about, from face to face, and Bryce admired his style. Djil was a master storyteller.

"Decker is better," he continued. "I walked his dreams and watched as he broke free of that nasty fellow. The Gaunt Man, Kurst calls him. Anyway, Decker's still in danger, still has the evil magic upon him, but at least he's awake now."

"We're glad to hear that. But why did you call us here?" Bryce asked. "Why did you enter Tolwyn's dreams — however you accomplished that — and urge her to come to this place?"

"I didn't call you here, I just guided you."

"Doesn't that amount to the same thing?"

Djil shook his head. "The Earth called to its children, preacher-man. But the children have lost their ability to hear. But I heard, and I don't mind saying that I was frightened by the sound. Imagine what it must take to scare something as big and powerful as this old world! But scared or not, I was also responsible, so I cast about in the Dream Time to find others who heard. That's how I found the sword-woman. That's how I found all of you."

Bryce began to ask another question, but Djil spoke first. "Hold your questions for a while longer, preacher- man. Let me tell you a story first. I saw it in the Dream Time, and I think it may answer some of what you want to ask."

"The story begins a long time ago, so long ago that time had no meaning," Djil began. "Let us see this place where there was no time. There was no space, no space at all. There was only the nothing, and the nothing was all alone."

"The Void," Kurst corrected. "In Orrorsh, the legends call it the Void. It existed in the Place, in the Time of Nothing."

"Who's telling this story?" Gutterby asked angrily.

"I will! I will!" Toolpin offered.

"No, it is Djil's story," Kurst said. "I apologize for interrupting."

Djil smiled, showing the hole where a tooth had once been. "It is everyone's story, a part of the Dream Time. But I will tell it now. The nothing was alone, empty. Then one day (although days had no meaning) the nothing met the everything."

"Eternity," Kurst explained, then fell silent when Djil and the dwarves gave him fierce looks.

"The nothing and the everything were different in every way," Djil continued. "Where the nothing was empty, the everything was full. They met, touching in a whirlpool of energy. The nothing finally found something to fill it, but to do so meant destroying each piece of the everything as it came in contact with it. The everything, meanwhile, had found something to help it free the stuff that would build worlds. If only the crumbs weren't devoured as they burst free."

"The Maelstrom of creation," Kurst clarified.

"Will you shut up!" the dwarves yelled as one. Bryce smiled. They really did like stories, he thought.

"Well, two of the crumbs were strong crumbs," Djil said. "They were able to survive the raging whirlpool — excuse me, Maelstrom. These crumbs were live things, great spirits fallen from the mouths of greater spirits, and one was the Nameless One. He was like the nothing, empty, needing every kind of sensation to fill him. He reveled in destruction and chaos. The other child, Apeiros, saw the good in all and was full of hope. She loved freedom and creating things — making the impossible possible."

Everyone looked at Kurst. He looked back, and everyone waited expectantly. "Those are the names my legends use," he declared.

Djil resumed without missing a beat. "Don't think good and bad where these two are concerned. Those concepts have no meaning to beings one step removed from the primal forces. They simply were; reflections of the nothing and the everything that spawned them. Apeiros set possibilities free by making them real — things of color and shape and sound and idea; creation was her power. In this way other, lesser things were able to survive the Maelstrom. But when the Nameless One (who Apeiros named because he coald not summon the creativity to name himself) saw the bits of creation, he gobbled them up. So Apeiros had to set more possibilities free. And they were both surprised, because neither one knew how to do what the other had done: Apeiros had never thought about destroying things before, and the Nameless One had never thought about making things before. So they both learned something.

"And in the learning came the problem. The Nameless One was furious that Apeiros could do something he couldn't. So the war began. It was a war of creation against destruction, of two equal forces trapped in a conflict that could last forever—just like the Maelstrom that raged above them. The Nameless One, maybe learning just a bit from Apeiros, eventually came up with a solution. He cheated. He called to the nothing for help.

"He opened up the door to the nothing, and let the nothing in to eat the morsels Apeiros made. To a great spirit like the nothing, even Apeiros' power was hardly a moment's problem. So it looked like the Nameless One would win after all.

"But Apeiros was smart, too. She created something —but not just another thing to be destroyed. She created a whole new place, a new space that wasn't the same nothing space she and the Nameless One lived in. Oh, she had the help of the everything, but sometimes everybody needs some help. Together, Apeiros and the everything left to live in the new place, leaving the Nameless One alone with the nothing. And the nothing was still hungry.

"Now the Nameless One was in a terrible fix. If it didn't find things for the nothing to eat, the nothing would eat him! Try as he might, though, the Nameless One couldn't find where Apeiros and the everything had gone. But he could sense them. And he sensed that somehow Apeiros had released all of the everything so that whole universes were springing into being.

"The Nameless One, using what possibilities remained floating around him and what little he had learned from Apeiros, fashioned bundles of power and threw them in all directions. These bundles were full of destructive urges, and they had intelligence, too. They flew and flew, finally landing on worlds where people could find them. People like Kurst's Gaunt Man. And when enough of these bundles cause enough destruction, then the Nameless One will come running, hoping to finally catch Apeiros or the everything."

"And where the Nameless One goes, can the Void be farbehind?" Kurst finished. Then he added, "Frightening stuff — if you believe it."

Djil pointed at the Heart of Coyote, which Bryce discovered resting in his hands. He must have taken it out of the pack during the story, but for the life of him he couldn't remember doing so.

"Belief is a funny thing, Kurst," the shaman said. "But do you know what that silly blue and red stone is? It's belief made solid. It's a piece of the everything."

95

James Monroe walked across the tarmac toward the motor pool on the far side of the compound. He needed to find transportation to one of the big cities. San Bernadino, maybe. Or even Los Angeles. Then he could get on with his quest. Excitement coursed through his body; with each step he was closer to reaching Tolwyn.

He heard the approaching helicopter before he saw it. The low, steady beat of the spinning rotor blades built slowly at first, getting louder until the craft finally appeared over the buildings across the compound.

Monroe watched as it rocked back and forth erratically, dropping its blades dangerously close to one of the buildings as it tilted to one side.

"What's wrong with that pilot?" he muttered. "He can't fly worth a damn."

The helicopter set down roughly, landing with an audible crash that bent the undercarriage. Before Monroe could decide whether the pilot was crazy, reckless, or in trouble, he saw a splash of red splatter across the inside of the windshield.

"Good God!" he screamed in surprise, and started off at a run toward the helicopter.

Monroe made his way around to the door of the large transport. Each window he passed was marred by dripping red splattered upon the inside of the glass. He reached the door, but found that it was already swinging open. The doctor stepped back, and something inside him screamed "run away!" He just stood there, however. This moment was important. He knew it was! And if he survived, there would be power as a reward for his bravery.

The door completed its swing, revealing the dark opening into the belly of the chopper. Monroe swallowed, trying to ignore the cold chill running down his spine. A form appeared in the darkness. At first it was indistinct, nothing more than a huge shadow moving within the deeper shadows. Then it stepped into the diffused light of the ash-filled day, and Monroe gasped.

The man that emerged from the helicopter was close to seven feet tall and as wide as two men. He had a wild look about him, crazy eyes that reminded Monroe of the gray cat's eyes.

A hunter's eyes.

He held his hands at his sides, bent like claws. Red covered those large hands, staining them, painting them all the way up to his elbows. The doctor identified the liquid immediately. He had seen enough of it over the years. It was blood. And worse, the bright crimson also stained the man's lips and mouth. The man stepped closer, and it took every ounce of willpower Monroe could muster to keep himself from bolting like a rabbit before a wolf.

"You smell like Decker," the blood-covered man said. The stink that emerged from his mouth caused Monroe to gag. "But you're not him. Not exactly. But you're from his litter, aren't you little man?"

Monroe nodded, suddenly angry that this person knew his secret. He forgot the bloody windows, forgot the man's size. All he remembered was the anger he felt toward his brother and Julie Boot, and he let it mix with this new anger. Then he charged the larger man, wanting only to pound on him, to cause him pain.

The blood-covered man laughed. It was a wicked sound. He caught Monroe around the neck with his large, blood-covered hands, and lifted the doctor with no effort. Monroe's feet dangled a good half a foot off the ground.

"Should I kill you, little man?" the larger man asked. "Should I show you what I did to the soldiers in the flying carriage?" The large man studied him with his cat-like eyes. "Or should I let you go?"

Something was happening to Monroe, something strange. He felt it deep inside himself, a feeling like static building before the lightning comes. It was the power! But he had no idea what to do with it.

The large man sniffed. "You're a stormer," helaughed. "Or at least you're about to be. If you make your choice." An evil grin twisted his blood-smeared lips. "Let me help you. You can try to destroy me, which will make you a stormer but end your pitiful life. Or you can side with me, agree to help me. And perhaps I'll let you live."

Monroe could feel the static bouncing within him, around him. So much power! There could even be enough to smash this arrogant psychotic, if he could figure out what to do with the power. At the thought, endless possibilities began to flash across his mind. He saw countless ways to defeat the large man, countless ways to free himself and escape. He just had to grasp one of them as they appeared and wield it like he wielded scalpels in the operating room. But there was another option open to him.

"What," Monroe forced the word through his constricted throat. The larger man loosened his grip ever so slightly. "What do you want from me?" the doctor finished.

"I want your brother. I want Andrew Decker."

Monroe couldn't believe it. That was his choice? Either fight this monster of a man, or direct him to the brother he hated? That was no choice at all.

"I'll show you where he is," Monroe said, smiling at the thought.

He laughed as the lightning crackled inside him.

96

The Gaunt Man turned away from the mirror, faint wisps of mist still rising from it like a dying fire. Scythak was close to Decker now. All the man-tiger had to do was capture Decker and bring him to Orrorsh, where the Gaunt Man could reestablish full control of the stormer. Once attached directly to the machine, there would be no way for Decker to escape before he completed the task appointed to him.

He had to finish removing all the possibilities of the Gaunt Man's failure. That was most important as the Gaunt Man reached the crucial stages of his plan.

Even so, the runes were still implanted, still doing their work. The machine still ran, draining Decker's possibilities, draining the others. But without Decker or another of similar strength, there was no one to sort the possibilities. For all his power, that was one of the things the Gaunt Man could not do. To him, the energy was all the same. There was no difference that he could see. Why could some stormers see them? He knew the explanation that was simplified as the legend of the Nameless One and Apeiros, but he never really believed in the legend. It was always a story to him, nothing more. If the Nameless One and Apeiros ever existed, they were nothing more than memories now. And soon even those memories would be replaced by his own elevation to godhood. Soon he would be Torg in more than just name. Soon he would have the power as well.

He turned back to the mirror and searched for Thratchen. He found the cyber-demon easily, for Thratchen was even now landing in the courtyard of Illmound Keep. Good. He would be here when Kurst and the others arrived. The Gaunt Man waved a hand over the mirror, and his own image returned to the chilled surface.

The Gaunt Man collapsed heavily into his throne of bones to think. He went over his plan in his mind, looking for any flaws. After countless centuries of study, he had determined the ingredients necessary to elevate himself to Torg. The process required a phenomenal amount of possibility energy available in one place — more than any world he had ever conquered could contain. But legends spoke of a world that literally sparkled with the energy. After more centuries of searching throughout the cosmverse he found the world of legend; he found Earth. But there was no way he could attach his realm to the planet. The world was just too strong for a single High Lord to take. He needed help. He needed other Possibility Raiders.

Six realities were now attached to this possibility-rich world — more than enough to keep the power surges from repelling them. Already each High Lord was busy establishing areas of power and influence, busy stripping power directly from the succulent sheep that inhabited this world. Let them take what they wanted, he thought. There would still be more than enough for his purposes.

The second part of his plan was proceeding well. His sorting machine was using stormers to sort desirable possibilities from undesirable ones, forming a pattern on which to build the reality he so desired — a reality where a mortal being can be reborn as the Torg.

The third portion of the plan required an incredible amount of physical energy. This energy (which was even now being sucked from the planet by his infernal machine, as evidenced by the slowing of the planet's spin) would be fired through the possibility pattern created by the first machine, burning along the latticework of the almost-real and perhaps-true to make the possible real.

He had only recently come up with the idea to use Decker to sort a specific type of possibility in addition to the pattern he desired. He had set the congressman to work showing him the paths that led to the Earth actually surviving the entire process. It would not be good if the planet and its people (the fuel he needed, after all) died before he had a chance to make his possibility pattern a reality.

Damn the stormer who helped Decker resist him! Now there was the possibility of failure, however small. He needed Decker to finish his work. He needed to know that no possibility of failure still existed.

The Gaunt Man stood, picked up his cane, and left the tower room, heading for the stairs that led to the cellars.

To the sorting machine.

97

Decker doubled over with pain. Suddenly the staves were active again, and the constant draining sensation he felt increased twelve-fold. His vision swam, and he heard the voice from his dreams

(nightmares)

shout, "Choose! Choose!" The doors were there, beckoning him to throw one open as opposed to another.

"Go to hell!" he gritted through clenched teeth.

"Ace? What is it? Ace?" Julie said, startling him.

He thought he was alone in his room. The President had gone off to the rooms made available to him to get some rest after their long discussion, and Decker had decided to give standing up a shot. Now he wasn't sure about the wisdom of his decision.

Julie put down the tray of food she was carrying and rushed to his side. She supported his weight, helping him back onto the bed. Her touch was like water to the fire of pain that raged through him. Her concern made his vision clear, made the crackling light of the staves dim.

"I think I can fight him," Decker said. "I think I can force him out of my mind. Especially when you're near. You seem to add strength to me. And I need strength right now."