Keep moving, find Sam, get out. Keep moving, find Sam, get out. It became a mantra as she walked.
“Seems like we’re getting nowhere,” Larsen barked from behind her.
Her back arched from the jab of his pistol barrel. She staggered forward a couple of extra paces away from it. “Just be patient,” she said, cursing the high note of fear in her voice. “We have to go a long way around, because we couldn’t go back the way we came.”
“We will shoot you and scavenge your supplies if you don’t help us,” he said. “You know that, right?”
Slater laughed in spite of herself. “You’re a really great motivator, Anders. I bet you’d quickly rise to the very top of middle management if you took an office job.”
To her surprise, Olsen, the merc leader, laughed out loud. But when he came up alongside her, his face was scarily hard. “He is less than a leader,” Olsen said, his voice heavily accented Scandinavian. “But his point is true. We won’t carry baggage. Where are you leading us?”
“Back to the green cavern, just like you asked. Only it’s a circuitous route, that’s all.” She realized the slight glitter of nascent vines that seemed to thread a lot of the tunnels between larger caves, appeared to be brighter. She grabbed onto that small detail. “See how these are glowing more? That means we’re getting closer.”
Olsen’s eyes narrowed. Clearly he didn’t believe her, but he dropped back a pace or two again. Although she couldn’t feel its touch, she strongly sensed the presence of his assault rifle inches from her back.
Syed glanced over, a question in her eyes. Slater gave the tiniest shrug. Maybe there was something to it. The tiny filaments of vine did appear to be increasing. They trudged on, leaving a little more hope behind with each step. Syed’s headlamp flickered and dimmed a little, then came back. Her hand rose to it, panic in her eyes.
“Turn it off for now,” Slater said. “Save your battery. We can manage with mine.”
Olsen said something in rapid Norwegian from behind them, then Jensen and Larsen’s lights clicked off. Slater allowed herself a small smile. It was some comfort, at least, that even the big tough mercs were as concerned about survival as she was. Even if they did end up shooting her and Jahara, it gave her some melancholic pleasure to know they’d probably still die here, too.
With the sudden reduction in light around them, Slater noticed a soft glow far ahead. She allowed herself a moment of hope. The smear of green luminescence along the walls was definitely more than the simple hints of tunnel growth. Had she, through dumb luck, actually managed to guide them back to the green cavern after all?
She thought about saying something flippant like, Here we are then! but decided against it. No point in tempting fate. They had seen other brightly illuminated caverns, had nearly died in one despite the safety they thought it offered. Several of them had, in fact, died there. She drew another deep, nervous breath and pushed on.
“Is this it?” Larsen said from behind as the brightness grew. The relief was apparent in his voice.
But they stepped out into something none of them could have anticipated. The passage opened into an impossibly huge space. The walls and ceiling disappeared into infinity, lost away and above in the distance to clouds of swirling, pale green mist. To their right, the ground rose to a high ledge of rock, the wall rising above it to be lost in fog. To their left, the rocky ground curved slowly away into fog-shrouded distance. Several more tunnels emerged at various places along both sides. But in front of them, shimmering and gently lapping, was water that could only be described as an ocean. It glimmered with its own green phosphorescence, sparkling in tiny wavelets that rose and fell. The edge lapped softly at the rock, in a gentle mesmerizing rhythm that left pale deposits of brightness behind that slowly dimmed, only to be replaced with the next gentle wave. Mist swirled over the surface of the water that seemed to stretch away from them forever.
Slater’s breath was trapped in her chest with wonder, but Larsen managed to find his voice.
“What the hell is this?”
36
Digby O’Donnell let the sentience of a thousand beings thrum through his mind. The sensation was agony and ecstasy. It was transcendental and destructive. It was more than he could ever have imagined.
He knelt in water that lapped, glittering, around his hips, his mind far from his own. Things moved in the sea all around him, bright darts of fish, slowly pulsing clouds of microscopic luminescence, occasionally even a gently pulsing, glassy jellyfish. They seemed to come to him in worship, in deference, drawn by his connection to everything in the writhing network of caves and tunnels, but more importantly, his connection to what lay beneath, out there. And no doubt, his connection was evident in the brightly glowing idol he held in blistered hands. The idol that grew brighter by the moment.
The Jade Sea was immense. Even if it had some boundaries in this world, its reach was eternal, through other worlds, other dimensions, glory without end, and Digby’s mind stretched and warped through them all.
The waters began to roil, as if something gargantuan stirred deep, deep under the soft rise and fall of the surface. Bubbles rose, the lapping waves increased. The mist, writhing like lazy ghosts across the surface of the sea, began to thicken. Its activity increased, as though it were alive, and excited. More clouds built up in the distance and rolled toward the shore as if with purpose.
Digby’s connection to the strange life underneath increased too, clarity coming ever more quickly. He knew the mind of the Master. The Overlord of All. He knew its corrupted desires, its need. It wanted to consume, to feed on the conscious life of anything that moved in the many realms. It starved. It wanted to devour the minds of individuality wherever it found them. Digby shivered with the deep vibrations of its malevolence, its darkness, its hatred. It yearned for dominion, for control, everything that could ever be under its command, for no reason beyond the removal of agency from everything else. The Overlord simply wanted to be lord over all without any challenge, without any contest. It required the deep, total peace of utter control. And Digby would facilitate that. He would usher that forward. It began here, but it wouldn’t end here. This was only the germination of the seed of the end of everything.
Digby laughed maniacally, thrilled and horrified. Tears streamed down his face, falling into the Jade Sea with small sparks of green brilliance, his grief and ecstasy becoming part of that great body that stretched beyond worlds.
The idol grew hotter in his hands, painfully so, threatening to strip the skin and flesh from his bones, but he couldn’t let go. His fingers could no more release the idol than his neck could voluntarily release his head. He raised the idol high, his hands as though on fire, pain radiating down his arms, and he howled. The waters surged and bright green arcs in the sea and sky flashed like lightning.
37
Annaki-Akan and his two reluctant companions guided Aston, Tate and Galicia down twisting passages. They seemed to travel for a long time, Akan’s friends regularly chittering at their leader only to be shouted down. The tension rose among them, obvious in their movements, and that only made Aston more nervous.
“Where are they taking us?” Tate asked suddenly, as if reading his mind.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t trust them. We don’t know they’re our allies just because they let us eat some of their mushrooms.”
Aston sighed. He couldn’t argue with that assessment. “I’m with you, really. We have no idea what’s going on. But look at our options. We couldn’t go back the way we came, because the tunnels were swarming with mantics. We have no idea where to go if we strike out on our own. So what’s left? I say we let these guys show us whatever it is they want to show us.”