long awaited

CHAPTER NINE

gary dirin tensed, adding to the short list of times i’d seen him show fear. it didn’t help my own growing apprehension. he turned to me, his face as blank as he could make it. ’stand fast. they’ve loosed their wraiths upon us.’ he started to say something else, then seemed to think better of it.

a silence behind us caught our notice, and we turned to find dozens of them dropping from the upper levels down to a perfect and silent landing on the massive device. they flowed down its sides, the chaos of its mechanical surface and the sheerness of the slope having no effect on their slow, deliberate advance. we were surrounded and if i’d leaned over the edge, i would have hazarded a guess that they were coming up from below in just as heavy numbers. i tried to take small comfort that they appeared incapable of true flight.

gary started to speak again, then stopped again. he cursed under his breath, then simply told me to stay put, and strode forwards to the advancing black tide between us and our exit. the feel of the air changed, as before a coming storm, and yellow sparks began to arc across the wall of shadowy figures. what seemed to be arms raised up and glowed bright, blindingly.

i looked on in horror as gary neared their position, inexorably drawn to his certain doom. he drew forth from under his coat a metal object of unknown design. i had never seen it before in all my years of knowing him, and it looked more like what the old men had been carrying than something of my world. the wraiths lowered what seemed to be hands all at once, and a great bolt of lightning shot forth. for an instant i knew my friend was already dead.

but only an instant. the bolt never reached him. it was instead creating a dancing arc between the wraiths and his strange device. he seemed almost calm as he held it out before him. it was impossible to tell from behind, but his stance was solid. he stood tall and strong as he usually did when he was in control of a situation, which was nearly always.

the wraiths seemed not to have expected this. their hands disappeared back into what seemed to be bodies, and the vague murmur of silent voices changed tone to become a discordant silence, as of a crowd struck dumb, looking about each other for some sign, some understanding.

the haft of garys device had a distinct yellow glow now, and as i watched, two prongs swung slowly outwards about its middle. electricity arced all along the haft of the device and the prongs. he shifted his grip and as he did so, i had the sudden impression that he was holding a sword without a blade. then, with a crack of thunder, it had one. a glowing yellow blade. the wraiths seemed to take a step backwards.

gary shifted his grip again, grasping the sword with both hands, and he advanced on the shadowy figures once more. the silent murmuring stopped, and the air was filled with a silent howl of fury and rage. shadows swept over me, and i was pushed to the ground as they surged past, my shoulder burning where they touched me. gary dirin was lost in a black cloud, punctuated only by the mass of yellow eyes, pointing inward.

the cloud thickened and broiled and then it stopped, for a moment, and then it exploded. the wraiths darted backwards away from gary, who was swinging his strange yellow sword round and round. the vague substance of their ephemeral bodies seemed vulnerable to his blade, bits of shadow floating away into nothingness where he cut them. where he severed a head, the yellow orbs of their eyes clattered to the floor, silently screaming. i realized that i was not hearing their voices, but i could feel their presence in my mind.

finally the wraiths gave up their attack and simply scattered. black streaks of vague form shot out in all directions from our little bridge, vanished back into a thousand doorways, and a thousand doors slid shut, leaving us alone. more or less. a hundred or more of the yellow orbs lay in silence on the floor, their light ever more brilliant without their shadowy bodies to mask it. the walkway all around gary steamed.

i reached out to touch one of the orbs, but a word from gary stopped me. the blade was gone from his sword, and the prongs returned to their inset position. he very carefully picked up two of them with his device, and pointed it at the upper spiral of the walkway. with a horrible wail like the banshee from the upper tunnels, a bolt of white light shot forth and struck the far off ceiling of the chamber. the metal burned where the beam touched it.

steam issued forth from the device, and after a moment, he removed two black objects, and handed them to me. they were identical to the black bullets he had given me at the start of our journey. after a few moments work there were three glowing orange scars in the ceiling above, and the strange gun had a full load of six rounds. he held it, pondered it for a moment, swore again, and returned it to me, gingerly. then we climbed once more into the pod and sealed the hatch.