Echoes of the Fourth Magic (8 page)

T
HE BEACH WAS
as dreary and gray as the sky above. Soggy clumps of seaweed, disgorged offal of the ocean, lined the high-tide mark as monuments of neglect. Dead fish and crabs, untended by scavengers and parasites, festered in the sand. Something was terribly wrong here. What should have been a place of revitalizing, cleansing tides offended the senses like a fetid, unmoving swamp. Nature seemingly had abandoned or had been forced from this stretch, leaving it in total decay. Yet the men were undaunted, for this land, however discouraging, was their salvation, their deliverance from the very fires of hell.

After a couple minutes of quiet thanks—none of them had even stepped out of the raft—Mitchell remembered his responsibilities. “We’ve got to find some water,” he said. “And I want to know where we are.”

“And when we are,” Reinheiser quipped. Brady’s test of the cadavers had gone exactly as the physicist had predicted, though Reinheiser and the doctor had decided to keep their findings private until the more serious problems were addressed.

But none of the others missed Reinheiser’s remark, and for the first time, Del seriously contemplated the possibilities. The devastation beyond the golden sheet had convinced him that there had been a holocaust, likely a nuclear
war, but occupied with other pressing issues, he hadn’t really considered that perhaps the devastation came fifty or even a hundred years after the
Unicorn
had sailed from Woods Hole. The prospect of a new world, of meeting a man from the future, now intrigued Del; a very large part of him hoped that Reinheiser’s theory would be proven right.

“We’ll split up into three groups,” Mitchell said, looking at the three remaining rifles. He surveyed the landscape. North, faintly visible through the light fog, loomed the distant shapes of huge boulders, a rocky prelude to great dark mountains. South, the beach remained redundantly gray for as far as the eye could see. Due east, inland, was a marshy plain, flat and misty, misshapen black puddles of salty backwash blotting a gray-green background.

“Pull the raft up above the tide line,” Mitchell told Del and Billy. “Then head north. Corbin, take Thompson and go south.”

“Thanks a bunch,” Corbin mumbled.

“The rest of us will head inland,” Mitchell continued. “And each group takes a rifle. We’ve got about four hours until sundown; and I want you all back here before then.”

Del and Billy moved at a swift pace, excited and anxious to discover their whereabouts and, as Del put it, their “when-abouts.” Two hours and several miles later, they found themselves stomping along the only twisting trail they could follow through the great boulders and sheer rock faces. It rose and fell, more up than down as they steadily climbed higher and higher. Off a few hundred yards to the left and below them came the incessant pounding of the waves vainly bashing against the invincible cliffs.

“There’s no end to these rocks,” Del muttered, his head down, watching his step; he had already stubbed his toes several times on the unyielding stone. The path was only a couple of feet wide at this point, barely a crack in a huge slab of solid stone, and inclined steeply. Finally approaching
the summit of the difficult rise, he looked up and beheld a magnificent sight.

“A castle!” he gasped, and darted up the trail. Billy shrugged, about to ask what his friend might be talking about, but seeing Del so obviously intrigued, even consumed, he simply followed Del’s lead. Amoment later a gust of wind thinned the fog, and sure enough, Billy too saw the black walls and imposing towers of an immense fortress far in the distance, set upon a cliff face overlooking the sea.

Del stood on the lip of a ledge, his hand shading his eyes as he tried to gain a better view of the castle through the alternately thick and thin patches of fog. He still hadn’t looked at the drop beneath him.

Billy did when he got there.

“Get down!” he whispered harshly. He grabbed Del by the shirt collar and pulled him back from the ledge and to the ground.

“What are you—” Del began, but shut up when he saw Billy trembling and readying the M-16.

   Ray Corbin carried his rifle casually, barrel down over his right arm. Thompson had first grabbed the weapon back at the raft, but Corbin had witnessed too much to let the unsteady seaman anywhere near it. The two traveled slowly, for though Thompson was excited, Corbin insisted they take things easy.

They moved inland just off the beach, traveling over a line of parched bluffs covered by scraggly brown grass. Corbin’s easy pace subdued Thompson a little, and both walked silently, deep in thought—Corbin worrying about the fate of his family in New England, and Thompson, who had already convinced himself that he had saved the
Unicorn
single-handedly, fantasizing about the presentation of his medal.

As they approached a high bluff, the sound of voices abruptly ended their daydreams. The two looked at each
other, and Thompson was about to blurt something out when Corbin slapped his hand over the seaman’s mouth. He motioned for Thompson to follow and began crawling up the side of the hillock. As they neared the top, the croaking voices became clearer; guttural, sounding somehow not human, but speaking in a broken form of English. After a long moment, Corbin mustered his courage, squirmed to the top, and looked down on the speakers; then, so entranced was he by their appearance, that he didn’t even notice Thompson crawling up behind him.

Hideous they were, mutated as if nature herself had rebelled against their very existence. Nine of them stood naked except for scant lizard-skin loincloths tied about their waists and sheathed swords strapped to their sides. They were shorter than men, but stocky, their sinewy trunks supported by bow-legged, powerful legs, and pallid green skin blotched by uneven clumps of knotted, filthy hair, hung about them in loose flaps. Their faces were worse yet; lipless mouths stretched thin, straining to cover cruelly pointed, yellow-stained teeth; twisted, boil-infected noses; and evil eyes, bulbous and yellow, like barren desert cracked by rivers of blood. Twisted arms hung crookedly at their sides, nearly reaching the ground.

Thompson’s face went white at the sight and, much to Corbin’s dismay, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Instantly, the creatures wheeled and drew their wicked swords. Corbin put his head in his hands.

“Well, Thompson, I guess it’s time we met our new neighbors,” he said with as much calm as he could muster.

Furious at the intrusion, the creatures charged the bluff. Corbin reacted quickly, springing to his feet, pointing his rifle into the air and firing a thunderous volley that froze the creatures in surprise.

The tension held for a long moment, but then the largest member of the group, a wide-shouldered brute, stepped through the line of its terrified comrades.

It eyed Corbin with cool contempt, its grimace showing
that it was not shaken, even by the gunshots. Corbin returned the stare, but felt the sweat beading on his temples. Thompson stayed huddled in the grass, not daring to move.

“Friends?” Corbin asked weakly. Then in a lower voice so that only Thompson could hear, he added, “I don’t think they’ve seen you. Stay low and get back to the raft to warn the others.”

But Thompson didn’t move.

“Go!” Corbin said as loudly as he dared, and he kicked Thompson in the ribs. Still quivering, Thompson inched down the hill.

   “Gunfire?” Mitchell gawked.

“Probably DelGiudice and that other moron playing games,” Reinheiser snapped, rising from the stagnant pool he had been examining. “Just the sort of thing that appeals to juveniles.”

“Del wouldn’t do that,” Brady came back angrily. “He doesn’t fool around with guns. Besides, those shots came from the south.”

Mitchell agreed. “Get everything together,” he instructed. “We’re heading back.”

“Miles!” Reinheiser protested. “And still we have found nothing fit to drink.” He threw a clump of weeds back into the fetid pool. “We need water, Captain!”

Mitchell’s hesitation further showed Brady the growing relationship between the captain and Reinheiser. Lately it seemed to Brady as if Reinheiser’s recommendations had taken on the tone of command.

“All right,” Mitchell conceded. “We’ll go a little farther. But keep your ears open!”

Brady just smiled away his distaste.

   Corbin stood eyeing the leader.

The creature growled a command to its troops, a word that Corbin could not understand, and they began slowly approaching, weapons in hand and all too ready.

“Put the swords away!” Corbin warned, and he blasted a second volley into the sand in front of their feet. This put Thompson, now at the bottom of the bluff, into a dead run. Terrified, he sprinted over the dunes, stopping only when he deemed that he was a safe distance away. Looking back from the top of another knoll, he could see the creatures fanning out, encircling Corbin.

The second volley had again scared the creatures, but their leader remained calm and its strength kept the others from panic. Again there came a long, tense pause, and then the leader began an ominous chant, “Men die! Men die! Men die!”

The trap around Corbin was firmly in place, and now the others joined in. “Men die! Men die!” Their frenzy growing with every repetition.

Corbin recognized the suicidal violence gathering like the black clouds of a hurricane about him. “My God, I have to kill,” he told himself aloud, needing to hear the words, needing to openly face the realization. His stomach turned in protest, a scream of disgust rising in the back of his throat.

To murder.

Trembling, his muscles arguing with every move, he raised the rifle to his shoulder. “I don’t want to kill you,” he pleaded.

The leader recognized the human’s weakness. It raised its arm and issued a command and the others halted immediately.

Corbin wondered if, prayed that, his threat had worked.

The leader’s wicked grin dispelled his hopes. It had stopped the others, Corbin realized, desiring in its blood lust to make the kill alone. It puffed out its chest and strode defiantly at its foe, apparently believing that this human would not find the courage to kill.

Yet the beast had miscalculated. As it approached, its twisted smile widening with every step, Corbin sensed a pervading vile aura; indeed, he was nearly overwhelmed
by the feeling of absolute evil emanating from the beast. His inner conflicts were suddenly resolved, for he understood at that moment that this was no unfortunate, ignorant creature. This was a monster, a demon come straight from the torments of hell. He tightened the rifle’s butt against his shoulder. “I don’t want to kill you,” he repeated, and truly he didn’t, for it was not his way to pass judgment, even obvious judgment, upon another. The beast never slowed, and Corbin growled, the flavor of righteousness on his tongue, “But I will.” And he squeezed the trigger with passion.

Click
.

The gun jammed.

The creature jerked in surprise and sudden horror when Corbin unexpectedly pulled the trigger. But as it tried to regain its courage, it recognized that Corbin had a problem. Unwilling to give the human a chance at another surprise, the monster charged right in and swung mightily with its sword. Corbin deftly blocked the blow with the rifle.

“I don’t want to fight!” he pleaded. But the beast, consumed by rage, was beyond diplomacy, was beyond even hearing the human’s words.

It whaled away wildly at the man, each blow more savage than the previous. Corbin became a release for furies and frustrations too base and vile for him to understand.

In hopeless desperation, he parried a few more attacks. But then, regaining its control just long enough for a slight feint, the creature evaded his defense. It howled with delight as the cruel blade gashed through flesh and muscle and shattered Corbin’s collarbone just to the left of his head. Corbin realized that he was sitting now, dropped straight to the ground by the force of the blow. Only then, as he began to understand the truth of his position, did he feel the searing pain.

Then he watched, all too aware, as the evil beast slowly, agonizingly, withdrew the jagged blade, its edge darkly
stained with his lifeblood. All the while, the creature eyed Corbin, laughing, reveling in the man’s torment.

But then, for some reason that he could not understand, Corbin no longer felt any pain, and his fear, too, had flown. All that came to him was a sudden, mystical insight into the id of the evil beast, and he pitied the thing, that it could never know the joy of goodness or of mercy. Truly, it was a damned soul. “Why?” he asked calmly as the creature began to raise its sword. Corbin offered no resistance, he just sat there and repeated. “Why?”

The creature’s delight turned to confusion. No screams of pain? No hint of fear? It looked to its companions, who, undaunted by Corbin’s passive reaction, were yelping with glee and jumping around wildly, throwing sand in the air. Infected by their frenzy, the creature looked back to Corbin.

Corbin sat swaying, nearly overcome by the vicious wound. Darkness edged his vision, but he saw the sword slowly and deliberately rise up above him and he heard the creature hiss, “Men die!” before the fatal blow bashed in his skull.

In the distance, Thompson had seen enough—had seen far too much. His vision blurred by tears, he ran north along the beach and back to the raft.

   Mitchell’s group had just started moving again when Corbin’s second volley rent the air.

“Those are definitely gunshots,” Doc Brady said.

“That’s enough,” Mitchell said with a certainty long absent from his tone. “We’re heading back.” He wheeled around before there could be any arguments, starting toward the beach with Doc Brady falling into quick step right behind. Reinheiser halted and sighed in dismay. Reluctantly, but without alternatives, he followed.

   “What did you do that for?” Del whispered, rubbing his bruised elbow.

“Did you look below you?”

“No, I was looking at the—”

“Well, look!” Billy demanded, and he pushed Del toward the ledge. Del peered over into the dense fog.

“I can’t see a thing!”