Claws 31

Tylha

The stonework is audibly creaking around us, now. There is a grating noise and dust filters down from the ceiling.

"Maybe we should turn back while we still can."

"If Rrueo is correct in her estimates, we have already passed that point." She sounds as if she's confident of her estimates. I suppose it helps to be confident of something.
  
The stock of my crossbow feels hot and slippery in my sweating hands. The roof of the subterranean corridor groans and releases another drift of dust. It should be solid, reliable, a sturdy arched construction. It should bear any amount of loading... but the whole structure seems to be rotting from within, and nothing can be trusted any more, now.

The stairs spiralled down to a small, square cellar, and from that, this tunnel led off. The light seems to be stronger, at its end, and in any case it was the only available way to go. We advance slowly, crossbows at the ready, and my eyes and antennae are straining at the dark, trying to make out the world around me.... I suppose Rrueo, with her nocturnal predator's eyes, might be doing better than me, but I can manage. Andorians in tunnels are not helpless.

Though we seem to be reaching the end of the tunnel, now. An arched entrance looms up before us, and beyond it... a room.

We pass through the arch cautiously, both of us blinking now in brighter light. The passage must have run most of the way through the hillside; above us is a dome of blue glass, and beyond it the sky. The room is round, and paved and walled in black basalt, and at its centre -

"A statue?" Rrueo says dubiously.

It squats there, black and massive, and it is in the shape of no sentient species I know. The head is long, shaped something like a shield, with rows of what might be eyes along the edges. The thing is sitting, I think, on some sort of throne, and it is impossible to make out details of the body, but it has two arms, and they grip the arms of the throne with immense taloned hands.

I look at the thing, and my skin crawls. It has the same black stony surface as the rest of the room, but there seems something different about it, some hint of movement or vibration -

Then the shield-shaped head moves, and the many eyes open, black and glistening. "You are here," says a deep, resonant voice.

"Tylha Shohl," I say, trying to keep my voice steady, "representing Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets -"

"Rrueo-Thinker, Rrueo-Captain," says my companion, "officer of the Klingon Empire."

"You are here," the voice repeats.

And then a new voice says, "It doesn't understand."

The new voice is thin, ragged, whispering. I look around. I can't see the speaker. "Who are you?" I ask.

"You are not the Grau," the deep voice says.

"No time," says the other voice. "Please. You have to kill it. Kill it now."

I sense, rather than see, Rrueo tensing beside me. "I feel your mind," says the deep voice.

And Rrueo screams, a high wailing sound like a soul in torment. She wraps her hands around her head, then drops to the floor, curling up into a foetal ball, whining all the while.

"Telepath," says the whispery voice. "Telepath - she couldn't take its mind. Its mind is different, so very different...."

"What are you?" I demand. I heft the crossbow in my hands. "What are both of you?"

"Your words are meaningless. The Grau must come."

"It doesn't know I'm speaking," says the whisperer. "It doesn't understand... people, things... linear time. Please. You have to end it. It knows that everything changes now."

"How?" I ask. "Why? What do either of you mean?"

"The Grau must come."

"She can't!" I shout. "She's not here! We don't know where she is!"

"It knows this is a decision point." The whisperer again. "It can see - all sorts of things - but it can't see past this point -"

The book of prophecy. The book with blank pages after Ronnie's face. "What are you?"

"I am I. That is all you can know."

"It used me. Used me... to be here... in this dimension. Like the compound. All part of the key that gives it access to our reality. I did what I could.... Please. You have to kill it. I'm so tired...."

I don't know if I can trust the whispery voice. But the deep one... that is the voice of a monster, I have no doubt of that now. The overlord. The ruler and user of this planet.

I whip up the crossbow and shoot. There is the solid thump as the bolt is released, and the thump as it strikes the target -

But the target is not the thing on the throne. As soon as the bolt shot from the bow, a black, monkish figure shimmered into existence between me and the creature... to fade as quickly out of being again, as the bolt slams into it.

I curse, and let the bow drop. On the floor, now, shadows seem to pool and spread... and then they rise swelling and gaining substance, becoming solid, black-robed figures.

They are not all the same. Some are taller than others, and the terrible claws on their arms come in different sizes - some are sword blades, a metre or more in length; others are short daggers, hooked and barbed. They shamble towards me with their arms outstretched.

They can't touch me - can they? Best not to take the chance. I draw the mek'leth from my belt. "Ushaan," I whisper between clenched teeth, and I spring forward to meet the attack.

The mek'leth is heavy, clumsy, not as balanced and swiftly responsive as a real ushaan-tor blade - but that hardly matters. The creatures flinch from me as I approach, and their substance parts and shrivels to nothing at a single slash from the blade. But for each one I destroy, another rises up out of the stonework to replace it -

"Cycles and cycles," the deep voice says, inanely.

"This isn't the way!" The whisperer's voice is urgent.

Whoever the whisperer is - they're right. I can keep killing these things until I die of weariness myself, and the overlord can keep bringing more of them to life. This isn't the way, indeed.

I slash at another one, watch it fade to nothing, then I dive for the abandoned crossbow. I work the lever quickly, spanning the bow -

"Cycles and cycles," says the deep voice again.

"No, no!" The whisperer. "The thing can predict that, too - you saw that -"

It can predict the path of a crossbow bolt, materialize another - servitor - to block it. But I'm taking a chance that it can't predict what I do next -

I pull another bolt from my belt quiver, make to fit it into the bow -

Then I fling the crossbow at the nearest servitor, and leap for the throne with the bolt clenched in my fist. The thing rears up, its taloned hands rising from the arm rests, but too late, too late to stop me driving the bolt, with all the strength of my arm, into the shield-shaped skull.

For a moment, I see the substance of the thing shiver and roil, see what might be something beneath it all -

Then the world changes.

---

The light is suddenly bright, the blue glass dome gone from above us. The walls are gone, too, and the floor is nothing but dirt. I have a fraction of a second to appreciate this, and then the blast hits me in the back, hurling me down, surrounding me with a swirling, choking cloud of dust.

And, suddenly, there is a stench, a nauseous mix of brimstone and garlic, filling my nostrils -

I gasp, and choke, and pull myself upright. My ears are ringing, my antennae tingling. The tunnel, I realise, the tunnel behind us. It collapsed, sending out a bellow of dust and dirt and air, knocking me down. But that doesn't explain the smell.

I look around. The dust is starting to settle. Dimly, I see Rrueo's dirt-shrouded form on the ground. I move towards her, quickly at first, then more carefully and slowly as sudden bruises make themselves felt. I kneel beside her on the ground, and touch her arm.

"Ahhh." She raises her head. "Ach! What is that smell?"

"Are you all right?"

"Rrueo... believes so." She winces, braces herself on the ground, clambers unsteadily to her feet. "The creature's mind was... too much for Rrueo. What happened?"

"A fight. I stabbed it with a crossbow bolt." I manage a shaky laugh. "It was protecting itself against missile weapons, and hand-to-hand weapons. I figured... using a missile weapon hand to hand might just confuse it long enough. I think I was right."

"This stench is not getting better." It smells foul enough to me; I can't imagine what it's like to the Ferasan's sensitive nose. "What is that?" She points.

I follow her pointing finger. There is something lying on the ground - I can see it, now the dust is settling. I take a cautious step towards it.

A body. At first, I can't make out what species it is. Then, I see how it is dressed... the fashions of Earth, but Earth of maybe a hundred and fifty years ago. Human. A human body, but old, fantastically old, withered and aged beyond a normal human lifespan.

"The key. It - he - said something about a key. About the chemical compound and...."

"The compound." Rrueo spits. "That is it. That is the stench. It has reverted - the tellurium bonds are normal, now, and like most tellurium compounds, it reeks."

"Somehow," I say, "this ties in with Ronnie Grau. I think -" I try to think. "It must have been something that came through the Stygmalian Rift. It latched on to a human form, somehow, to give it a toehold on our reality. An alien intelligence from a temporal anomaly - its mind must have been completely alien -"

"Rrueo does not need to be told that."

I bend over the body. "This might be one of Ronnie's old crewmates. Someone who came through the rift with her. Maybe they've even got some identification -"

Then, as I stoop over the wasted form, the shrivelled eyelids slide open over yellow, filmed eyes. Straining sinews stand out like cords on the neck as the man raises his head, dry lips writhing and working -

"Tell Grau," the whispering voice gasps, "warn her - the other one was cleverer."

Then the breath rattles in the throat, and the head drops back suddenly to the ground. The impact is enough to dislodge age-blackened teeth from the wasted gums, and they rattle back into the dead mouth.

I look up at Rrueo, but the Ferasan's eyes show, she understands no more than I do.