The theropod stayed in the light with its mouth hanging open, small arms outstretched and shoulders hunched in an attack posture. Andy felt a chill run up his spine as he saw that the fearsome raptor had detected a threat that was even creeping it out.
Then from the dank water behind the great beast, something began to rise up, higher and higher. It looked like a flattened pipe, and Andy at first thought it was a snake or the long neck of a creature, but that thought was dispelled as sharp legs began to unfurl all along the body, dozens and dozens of them, and then they stretched outward, as if they longed for an embrace.
It continued to rise, nearly 10 feet and above the theropod. He recognized it now, a centipede, and in the sunlight, its head was a glossy, fire engine red and at its front, a formidable pair of pincers opened about two feet wide.
Andy knew that right here in this land, in modern times, lived the Scolopendra gigantea, the largest centipede in the world… at that time. It grew to nearly 16 inches long, was venomous, and loved living in caves where it fed off bat colonies.
But in the Cretaceous, there lived its ancestors, evolving from the mighty arthropleura, an eight-foot-long segmented insect of the Permian Period. Andy didn’t need to be told that this thing was a hunter and they had both fallen right into its killing ground.
The theropod must have become aware of the centipede as it spun, but faster than it could react, the massive arthropod darted forward, fixing its wickedly sharp pincers into the Austroraptor’s neck and then its body wrapping around like segmented tape to then allow its sharp legs to hook into the flesh.
The raptor screamed with a noise that made Andy want to cover his ears, and he wasn’t sure if the thing was injecting venom, or who would win, as he couldn’t look away.
“Now, Andy, now, now!” a voice screamed at him from within his bag.
Andy didn’t need to be told twice. If he didn’t get out, then he’d be the next thing being filled full of prehistoric venom and devoured slowly in this miasmic sinkhole.
He ran along the pond edge and reached the first vine, grabbed it, and tugged.
“Nope.”
It broke free and fell down heavily to the cave floor. The sounds of battle continued and he quickly glanced back to the pond. He saw that another long and flattened body had risen up in the dark water.
“Crap, there’s more.”
He tried again.
“Shit.”
Same result, and the next as well. Andy started to feel giddy from fear and refused to look back to the water now, even though the sounds of thrashing had ended as the battle had been decided.
He tried again and finally found one that supported his weight and began to clamber upward.
He didn’t stop climbing, arm over arm, for once thanking his meager diet for shrinking his body weight. Nearing the surface, he felt the vine begin to stretch and then jiggle. He chanced another look back and to his horror saw the blood-red head of one of the massive centipedes coming up the vine after him.
He whimpered and felt his hands and arms go weak from fear for a split second. In his mind, he could imagine the large pincers closing on his bony ankles and then dragging him back down into the darkness.
Fear then gave him a shot of adrenaline-fueled energy that made him cover the last 15 or so feet in seconds. He poked his head above the surface, didn’t even bother looking for the raptor pack, rolled to the ground, got to his feet, and sprinted into the jungle.
At the first huge hairy tree trunk, he stopped to look back and get his bearings. He tried to slow his breathing and the nausea he felt from fatigue.
Andy could see the broken vines over the hole in the ground and for a moment something started to breach, but perhaps the sunlight made it change its mind, and nothing eventually emerged.
He exhaled, and then doubled over and vomited. Nothing came up but yellow bile.
“Gluck?”
Andy opened the bag and smiled in at the tiny pterosaur.
“Yeah, you’re right, we were nearly bug food. But we’re okay now.”
He wiped his mouth on his forearm and turned toward the east, the direction of the plateau.
“I damn well hope this is worth it.”
Andy got to his feet and continued on.
CHAPTER 38
“This is fucking madness.” Chess’ eyes were slits as he hung onto his rope as the wind exploded around them, making him twist and bounce.
Ben checked his watch — the time distortion should happen any minute now, according to his calculations. They had started their climb half an hour ago and were all suspended at different levels of between 500 and 600 feet up from the jungle floor.
Above them, the sky on top of the plateau was purple-black and boiling like a witch’s cauldron. Heavy rain fell, but the wind was so erratic that the drops lifted and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and then heading upward as though being sucked up into a vacuum.
Ben knew that the comet Primordia was reaching what was termed its perigee or maximum observable focus, as it had reached its closest point to Earth. They must continue on, and must do it now.
“Hang on!” Ben yelled back. “It’ll soon… ”
The magnetic distortion reached its peak, and with it was generated a form of stability. The hurricane-like winds that had been roaring above the top of the plateau ceased, and the boiling clouds dropped to become a mist that moved through a primordial forest.
“… stop,” Ben finished.
Torrential rain still fell around them, but high above, Ben could now see an oasis of light forming. He knew that on the plateau the sunlight would be breaking through.
But the anomaly was that it wasn’t breaking through on their world, or in their time. Where they were going was somewhere far older and far away. But only in time.
“Climb, now!” he yelled and engaged his winch that began to drag him higher.
Now was the time, now the season of Primordia had begun.
PART 3 — Pellucidar is but a realm of your imagination
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life”
CHAPTER 39
Andy had scaled to the top of a tree and lifted his head above the hair-like fronds to stare up at the plateau.
Even though he had lived, or rather, survived, for 10 years in this time, and seen creatures living that were long just fossilized bones in a museum, it still amazed him when he saw evidence of time passing — the monolithic flat-topped mountain, or tepui, was only just beginning to have the surrounding jungle weathered down around it. Over the millions and millions of years to come, the jungle would sink, while the harder granite ‘plug’ would erode more slowly, making it seem to rise like an island into the sky. But now, it was just a slightly raised area in a vast primordial world.
Rain had started to fall an hour or so back, but that was nothing compared to what was happening over the plateau — surrounding it was a curtain of rain, almost like a shield. It reminded him of some sort of titan’s shower stall with the splash curtain pulled around it. Overhead, the clouds were boiling and turning slowly like they were being stirred, and the constant sheets of rain made it indistinct.
Andy grinned. “Behold the return of the great God, Primordia,” he whispered.