Dimension Of Horror

Chapter 15

Richard Blade materialized in the air and dropped to the floor of the vast egg-shaped room. He staggered, almost fell, then stood swaying as the intense pain in his head gradually subsided. He was in a fighting crouch, but he knew he could not fight, at least not yet. He thought, Where is the Ngaa?

He recognized the room he was in, though when he had been here last he had seen it through a veil of hypnotic illusion. The illusions had never been perfect. He had always been aware, in some part of his mind, of the reality that lay hidden behind each mirage, and now the sight of this room brought back to him the pattern of impressions he had gathered on his first visit. Most importantly, he knew where the Ngaa was, and what it was.

Ahead of him gaped a circular doorway and beyond that a long, dimly lit corridor. At the end of that corridor, in the exact center of this alien city, was a high-ceilinged inner chamber, bathed in a shimmering shadowless blue light. In the center of this chamber towered a delicate structure of colored glass, complex as a nautilus, ten times as tall as a man, glowing and pulsating, feeding off the limitless energies of the matter-antimatter engines beneath the floor.

This was the mind of the Ngaa, or minds, since it contained in electronically encoded form the united consciousness of all the creatures who lived on the Ngaa's planet when, eons ago, the sun was bright and the forests green. This mind, like a coral reef, was neither dead nor alive, but inhabited a shadow realm between life and death. It was conscious, yet at the same time only a kind of machine, a machine so much more complex than any machine man had yet built-more complex even than KALI-that it transcended the usual limitations of a machine and, in its way, thought and had something we might call a personality.

Blade remembered…

Blade remembered the gleaming, everchanging haze that drifted around this tower of glass, the haze that was an electromagnetic field, an almost-living cloud of energy. This cloud could move far from the brain, but could not exist without it. This cloud could shape itself into the semblance of anything, even a human being. This cloud could manifest itself in the world of mankind wherever it could find a human brain stimulated enough to serve as a gateway. The rituals of ancient half-forgotten religions could open a gateway, the fear and tension of war could open a gateway, the anger of a rejected child could open a gateway, but nothing could open a gateway as wide as KALI.

Blade remembered…

Blade remembered blank-eyed humans, the sons and daughters of those who had been snatched here by the Ngaa to serve as hypnotic slaves. He remembered the children of Ambrose Bierce and Amelia Earhart, born in the subbasements of the city, doomed to spend their entire lives there laboring for the Ngaa, hypnotic slaves who would never know normal consciousness. Were they still human? Or were they zombies who, never having developed minds of their own, would die without the Ngaa to tell them to eat and sleep and breathe?

Blade turned to the right, to the left, crouching, growing stronger, recovering from the shock of transition from one universe to another, his headache almost gone.

He thought, Why doesn't the Ngaa attack?

He glanced behind him.

There was nothing there but an immense window running from the floor to the peak of the dome. Beyond the window hung the dull red oval of the sun in a sky of dim violet, pink and dirty orange. Far below lay the black bulk of the planet. Between stretched the bright dust of an unfamiliar spiral nebula seen almost edge on. Through the soles of his bare feet Richard could detect the throbbing of the mighty force fields that kept this flying city suspended above the planet's surface. The faint rumble of these force fields was the only sound, except for his tense breathing.

His glance traveled swiftly around the room, but found no sign of his enemy. The huge circular doorway continued to yawn open, unprotected. He wondered if he had, by some miracle, caught the Ngaa by surprise.

He took a step forward.

The floor was not pleasant to walk upon, being composed of living bone covered with a thin layer of flesh, but the expected attack still did not come. Though it was cool in the room, Blade began to sweat. Then, abruptly, his nostrils detected a trace of the sharp smell of ozone.

He ventured yet another step, and another. The smell grew stronger.

The salt taste of his own sweat was on his lips.

Another step he took.

Then it came, the whispering voice that was many voices in one, the voice he heard not with his ears but with his mind.

«Richard Blade!» said the Ngaa, and there was amusement in its silent voices.

«Yes,» Blade responded softly.

«We see in your mind that you come not as our friend, but as our assassin.»

«Obviously I cannot conceal that from you.»

«You can conceal nothing from us. Whatever you plan we will know, and we will stop you. Cease your futile struggle. We have already won! Your planet is ours.»

«Not yet!» Richard's shout echoed in the vastness of the room.

«Don't you understand? You are here because we lured you here. We will keep you here until KALI transports you home, then we will accompany you, but in greater force than ever before, and take control of your computer installation. We will enslave those of your friends whose wills can be bent, and kill the others. We will meld ourselves to your KALI, make ourselves at one with her, for in spite of superficial differences, KALI is much like us. With the aid of KALI and you we will transfer our innermost mind to your world and make our home there, ruling humanity from the secret and secure citadel you have provided us under the Tower of London. Can't you see that you have lost the game, Richard Blade, and that the prize is as good as ours?»

Richard stood a moment, then said, «What about Zoe? Is she still alive?»

«She is alive and close to us. We will show her to you.»

A vision came unbidden to Richard's mind. He saw Zoe lying on an altar of polished bone, wearing the same nurse's uniform in which he had seen her last. She was breathing as if asleep, but her eyes were open and staring into space. He recognized the closed door behind her as the one that led into the central room of the city, the chamber of the Ngaa's inner self.

The voice that was many voices said gently, «As you see, she is safe.»

«I'm coming for her.» Richard advanced another step.

«But why? We will give her to you when you have served our purposes. Until then…»

Suddenly the circular exit irised shut with a swish and a click of bone on bone.

Richard raised his voice to his unseen enemy, though a whisper would have been heard, or a thought. «You are a fool, Ngaa! Do you think that will stop me? I remember how thin and fragile it is, how fragile everything is in your city. You made everything light so your force fields could easily support it, and depended on your ability to control minds for your defense. You cannot control my mind! I learned that in the plane over London. You should never have let me learn you were not omnipotent, Ngaa. That was your fatal error. And you should never have let me learn the route to your innermost brain, or that your brain was made of thinnest glass. You should have realized, Ngaa, that I would remember all these things when your spell wore off, and use them.» The echo was a long time fading.

«One step more, Richard Blade, and we will kill you.»

Richard laughed outright, then shouted, «You're bluffing, Ngaa! If you kill me you can't use me as a gateway!»

He ran, hurled himself against the door, and exploded into the passageway beyond in a shower of bone splinters.

The passageway was high-ceilinged as a cathedral and as wide. The walls gave off a subdued diffuse blue-green light that shimmered and pulsed with a rhythm like a heartbeat. Richard knew what the walls were made of Flesh! Living flesh that was transparent at the surface so he could see the intricate network of veins and arteries, translucent in its deeper layers, and its deepest part dark and black with oozing viscous shadows.

His bare feet drummed on the bone floor as he settled into a steady distance-eating lope, penetrating deeper and deeper into the city, breathing in, breathing out, setting a pace that would leave him fresh and ready for anything when he arrived at his destination.

The voice that was many voices whispered again in his mind, «We cannot kill you.» The tone was as calm, complacent and superior as ever. «Very well. We will merely… beguile you.»

To his horror, Richard saw the passageway grow blurred and begin to fade away. A terrible weariness came over him…

Blade awoke, head aching, as powerful fingers gripped his shoulder and shook him. He opened his eyes to look up into the face of a man he knew well, King Rikard of Tharn. King Rikard's face was so similar to Blade's that he had, as he had had many times before, the bizarre sensation of looking at himself-not his mirror image, but his real self. The face was Blade's, yes, but the long wild red-gold hair was from his mother.

King Rikard was Blade's son.

«Awake! Awake quickly!» the young man cried, eyes glowing with the reflected gleam of the nearby campfire. Dazed, confused, Blade stared up into a cloudless starry sky. He had been dreaming. Something about a nightmare creature called a Ngaa… But he had no time for dreams.

«What's wrong?» Blade demanded, sitting up and throwing aside the animal pelt that served him as a blanket. The night was cold and Blade was naked, but he could spare no thought for that.

King Rikard stood up, a giant in a green tunic with a faming golden sword embroidered on the chest and two swords slung from a wide leather belt. «The Looters have returned!»

Blade sprang to his feet. «But how can that be?»

His son handed him one of the swords. «They must have another dimensional gateway machine.»

Blade hefted the weapon, noting that it was not made of metal but of some strange kind of plastic. As his mind cleared he remembered the name of the plastic. Teksin! Of course! Made from the mani plant. He knew it as well as his own name. The world of dreams faded still more. Why did he think now of Zoe? For no special reason probably. He often dreamed about her. Yes, that must be it. She'd been in his dream.

A squad of men on horseback galloped past. Everywhere there was confusion, horses rearing, men running. A beautiful woman rode into the firelight, leading a riderless but saddled horse. «Mazda!» she called.

Blade answered. Of course he answered. Mazda was his name in this world. «Chara!»

Her cape swirled around her slender body. «Quick, Mazda! We must flee!»

Blade bounded into the saddle, seizing the reins. «Yes. Flee.» Never had his mind been so sluggish, so reluctant to leave the realm of dreams.

King Rikard was running through the camp, shouting, kicking awake the men who lay around the campfire, and the women and neuters. «Spread out! Spread out! They can't track all of us!»

Blade thumped his horse in the ribs and galloped out of the camp; Chara rode, silent and grim, at his side. For a moment the confused feeing Tharnians surrounded them, then they broke free and rode through the fields, and only an occasional shout or whinny revealed the presence of what must have been a substantial army. Hundreds? Thousands? Blade could not remember.

Then Blade saw a distant dark mass. «This way, Chara,» he said, turning his horse. «There's a forest over there.»

«Yes, Mazda.» She obeyed him instantly, without question.

For a while there was no sound but the drum of hooves, the rush of wind, and the flapping of Chara's cloak. She rode to his left and a little behind him. It was a warm night, without a moon. Under other circumstances it would have been pleasant to go riding with Chara.

They passed the first sparse trees on the edge of the forest.

He noticed the horses were becoming uneasy, veering from side to side, snorting and rolling their eyes. They were frightened of something, but what? Blade himself felt a vague nameless terror creeping over him. Suddenly he realized what was causing it. Subsonics! There must be a Looter vessel somewhere close using the subsonic generator to demoralize possible opponents. «Chara,» he began, «we'd better…»

Before he could finish his sentence the vessel rose from behind the dark wall of trees ahead, not more than a hundred yards away. It was at least forty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a domed turret on top, and gleamed faintly in the starlight. The trees, as the machine passed over them, seemed to shimmer and dance. Antigravity fields produced exactly that sort of shimmer.

The horses saw the thing at the same moment Blade did, and went crazy, rearing and bucking as if they'd never been tamed. With a scream Chara pitched from her saddle to land with a bone-cracking thump in the weeds. Blade decided his mount had become more of a liability than an asset, and leaped off, landing with a roll and coming up on his feet. The horses galloped off toward the camp.

The vessel moved closer, slowly, taking its time. Another similar machine came in view behind it.

Blade knelt beside Chara to whisper, «Are you all right?»

She shook her head, and when she spoke her whisper was harsh with pain. «No. I think… I think I've broken my leg.» She did not weep. She was a soldier, as much as any man.

A third machine rose up from behind the trees. In the first machine a searchlight snapped on and began to swing slowly from side to side, probing the grove, seeking a target, a victim. Blade guessed the machines carried human pilots. They were acting with a purposefulness the merely automated machines lacked. It seemed the Looters from Konis had learned a lesson from their recent spectacular defeat, learned that a human soldier is more resourceful and flexible than even a well-programmed robot. Blade also guessed that the men from Konis would this time be more interested in revenge than in loot. They would not be satisfied to kill, but would try to capture and torture.

Blade whispered, «Chara, I'm going to try to distract them, draw them away from you. Lie still and don't make a sound.»

«No, Mazda, your life is too valuable…»

He turned away from her and, crouching, moved off silently to the left. When he judged he had gone far enough, he stood up and shouted, «Here! Here! I'm over here, you swine!»

Then he ran.

But was he running in a forest or down a vast cathedrallike corridor? Suddenly both images appeared before him, like a double exposure, and he realized…

This is an illusion! I'm not in Tharn! There are no Looter machines here! I must wake up!

The image of the corridor faded.

The searchlight of the first machine swung in Blade's direction, passed over him, swung back, caught him. The three machines accelerated, pursuing him.

He dodged as he ran, but the searchlight followed, never losing him for an instant. He sensed the bulk of the machine above him, saw it out of the corner of his eye, a black silent hulk behind the blinding light.

Then he heard a metallic rattling, a swish like a giant whip, and suddenly his ankle was gripped by a cold metal tentacle. He fell on his face, clutched wildly at the twigs, the stones, the weeds, anything. The tentacle gave a tug and he swung upward, head downward, struggling frantically, to swing like a pendulum, narrowly missing some treetops.

The earth fell away rapidly.

The forest became a small black blot. He could see the campfire, a tiny point of light. Looter machines were everywhere, moving slowly across the landscape, some with searchlights, some simply featureless blobs of darkness. In the unnatural silence he could hear distant screams. Chara's screams! They'd found her after all.

Above him, inside the first machine, someone laughed.

Then the tentacle let go.

Richard plunged downward.

He thought desperately, I must wake up! I must wake…

Blade awoke with a savage headache.

Someone was pounding furiously on the door of his bedchamber.

«Come in, damn you,» Blade shouted, sitting up in the darkness.

The door burst open and Yekran stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the shifting glare of a bright maronite lamp. He was a big barrel-chested man with a broken nose and a long scar across his left arm and shoulder. He was clad in a tunic, kilt and sandals, and armed with sword and dagger slung from a brown leather belt.

It was Narlena who held the lamp. Her tunic was dark green. Her hair hung disheveled and black to the small of her back, and her delicate features were clouded with fear.

«We're under attack!» Yekran announced.

Blade stood up, swaying, not yet fully conscious. Had he been dreaming about some sort of monster made of glowing energy? He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. «Who's attacking us?»

«Krog!» Narlena whispered the name.

For a moment Blade stared stupidly at her. Krog? Who was that? Then it came back to him. Krog was the leader of the gang of vandalistic Wakers Blade had, some months back, driven from the city in a final decisive battle. Krog had agreed to lead his forces far to the north and stay there, but it seemed this was only a ruse by which the clever Waker bought his life and, almost as important, bought time to regroup his army. Blade had come to this strange city of Pura and found it divided between the barbarian Wakers and the civilized but decadent Sleepers-men and women who spent their lives in underground vaults in artificially induced dreams-who had given up their civilization to the barbarians by default. It was Blade who had organized the Dreamers and led them in the crusade to drive the Wakers out.

But now the Wakers were back!

Blade realized he had been a fool to trust Krog. The man's word was worthless!

In feverish haste Richard dressed and armed himself in an outfit not unlike that of Yekran, then, together with his two friends, he hastened out and down the long decaying hallway. He could hear distant shouts and the clash of metal on metal. Had the enemy already breached the walls and entered the city?

Swords drawn, they ran out the front entrance and descended the stone stairway to the street. In spite of the repair work the citizens of Pura had been doing, the city still resembled an ancient abandoned ruin, though it was not as bad as it had been when Blade first saw it. Armed men and women were rushing past, mostly heading toward the north wall. Blade saw an old man coming from the north wall, pushing against the crowd.

«Has Krog entered the city?» Blade called to the man.

The man answered hysterically, «He's across the bridge. I could swear he's right behind me.»

This seemed to be an exaggeration, but nevertheless the sounds of battle were uncomfortably close and getting closer. Blade cursed himself. He had had Krog at his mercy and let him go. How many lives was that act of kindness going to cost?

The way ahead of them was jammed, so Blade, Yekran and Narlena veered off down an alley, looking for a less crowded way. It was dark in the alley, except for the glare of Narlena's lamp. Wild shadows danced on the mossy brick walls.

Then, behind them, a door of rotten wood burst asunder and with a triumphant howl a stream of ragged, hairy, fur-clad men surged forth from the basement.

The three tried to flee, but another horde of warriors was now emerging from the darkness ahead. They were trapped between the two forces, and hopelessly outnumbered.

«Back to back,» Blade commanded.

The other two obeyed, and they stood in fighting crouch, awaiting the enemy attack.

It was not long in coming. After a few seconds hesitation, the Wakers advanced cautiously until only a few yards away, then charged.

Blade found himself hacking his way through a solid wall of stinking human flesh. The light fell and was crushed underfoot, but they fought on in darkness, grunting, gasping, struggling, drenched in a warm sticky fluid Richard knew must be blood.

His sword blade broke, severed by a blow from some heavy blunt weapon, perhaps a mace. He fumbled for his dagger. The heavy weapon swung again, connecting with Richard's head. Stunned, bleeding, he fell to the broken paving stones of the alley floor, under the trampling feet, and someone shouted, «We've got him! We've got him! We've got Blade!»

Another light appeared, a blazing torch.

Richard looked up through a tangle of faces and saw the shadowed features of Krog grinning down at him, clean-shaven, short-haired, curiously civilized among his shaggy troops. Blade attempted to struggle, but the troops held him pinned, immobilized.

«Is that really you, Blade?» Krog demanded. «By the gods, so it is!» He turned to his second-in-command and snapped, «Spread the word! We've captured Blade!»

Helpless, Richard heard the shout pass down the line, to be echoed by more and more distant barbarian voices.

In a daze he was dragged to a nearby cellar. Through the mob he glimpsed Yekran and Narlena. They were prisoners too. Krog followed close behind.

«Krog!» called out Blade through cracked, bleeding lips.

«Yes?»

«Is this how you repay me for sparing your life?»

«I'm not going to kill you, my friend. I'm not even going to torture you. That will have to do for payment. A life for a life! That's fair.»

Blade found himself in one of the Sleepers' vaults, now abandoned, and began to understand. «No! You're not…»

«Yes, I am,» Krog said seriously. «I'm going to put you in one of those dream chambers. This one, if I remember correctly, was made for a big man like you.»

The interior of the vault, no larger than the inside of a London studio apartment, was jammed with men, and when someone switched on the lights, Richard could see the low blue-enameled ceiling almost completely covered with a maze of tubing and cylindrical reservoirs and with square metal boxes at irregular intervals. Some of the boxes had dials and tiny lights on their sides.

He was being dragged inexorably toward an upright case-it could have been a mummy case-in the center of the room. It looked a good deal like KALI's launching case, and indeed worked on similar principles, except that it had no power to transport him into another dimension.

Krog said wistfully, «I have never been in one of these dream chambers myself, but I'm told the sensation is delightful. The Dreamers used to like it better than reality.»

Many hands pressed Richard into the case. He glimpsed Narlena's horrified face. Many hands began pressing the door of the case closed on him.

Why did he suddenly see an immense glowing passageway down which he was running? Blade thought. Was this… was this another of the Ngaa's illusions?

The case closed. Richard was in darkness, but he could smell the sickly sweet aroma of the gas that now began to hiss into his face, cool, soothing, gentle.

He thought, I must not sleep! I must awake! I must awake!

Richard Blade awoke with an agonizing headache.

The first light of dawn was dim, but even a dim light was painful. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. The sky over the distant white-capped mountains grew brighter. Soon it would be sunrise.

Blade sat up, yawned and stretched, then glanced around at his small band of comrades. All were asleep but one, Stramod the Mutant, who had stood the last watch. Stramod, with his bandy legs, long arms, large protruding ears, and white fringe of hair framing a whiskerless sea-blue face, looked more like a chimpanzee than a human, but he was dressed in fur tunic, breeches and boots and carried a sword and a long-barreled heavy flintlock pistol, and in his large brown eyes there shone an intelligence few normal men could equal.

«Good morning, Stramod. All's well?»

«Good morning, sir. All's well.»

Blade stood up and began moving from one to another of his friends, waking them gently. He had no need to waste time dressing: he'd slept in his clothes-the same tunic, breeches and boots combination that Stramod wore, that they all wore, whether man, woman or mutant.

«Wake up, Dr. Leyndt.»

Dr. Leyndt opened her eyes and drew back her long auburn hair from her face. There was a stern quality to her expression that made her more handsome than beautiful, but Blade knew that she had the passions of a woman when the occasion presented itself.

«Time to get up, Nilando.»

Nilando woke suddenly, his hand moving as if by reflex to the sword he wore even while sleeping. He was a young man with a blond beard and braided hair, and wore a chain of heavy brass links around his thick tanned neck. Only when he had assured himself that he was in no danger did his grip on his sword relax.

«Wake up, Rena.»

Rena was the youngest. She awoke with fear in her wide blue eyes, eyes that stared up questioningly at Blade from out of the tent of her long dark-blonde hair.

Four human beings. Five, if you could call Stramod human. Blade sighed, thinking, We are the only free humans left on this planet.

They ate a spartan breakfast; a few handfuls of uncooked meat and a swig of water from the canteen, then broke camp and continued their trek deeper and deeper into the jungle. Blade was weary, and he knew the others were too. For two weeks they had been moving at a forced march southward, further and further from what had once been civilization, further and further from the corpse-strewn smoldering ruins of Treniga, the Graduk capital, further and further from the blasted blackened island city of Tengran, from the radioactive crater of the Ice Master's former underground headquarters among the snowdrifts and glaciers. To the north there was nothing but death. To the south there was hope. To the south there was heat, and the enemy did not like heat. To the south there was jungle, miles and miles of thick vegetation that might-perhaps-shield them from alien eyes in the sky.

Shortly before noon, as they forded a narrow brook, blue-faced Stramod stopped abruptly and scanned the heavens. Stramod had the sharp senses of an animal, sharper even that Blade's.

«Hush,» whispered the mutant, finger to lips.

«What is it?» Rena whispered, clutching Blade's arm.

«The Menel,» Stramod answered softly, pointing.

Then Blade too heard the sound, the faint hissing roar of distant aircraft. He looked in the direction of Stramod's pointing finger, and saw four dots approaching from the north. The Menel! Blade had seen the creatures once, seen their giant stalklike bodies, their double-jointed eight-foot arms, their lobster claws, their pairs of two-foot tentacles, the snaillike pulsing suction disks upon which they glided with a stomach-turning sucking noise. The Menel! Alien monsters from some other planet, some other star-system, monsters whose technology was so far beyond mankinds' that there was no comparison and, in combat, no contest.

«Quick,» Blade snapped. «Under the trees!»

They waded ashore and dove into a thicket where they lay motionless, waiting. The rushing hiss grew louder, closer. Finally it was directly overhead.

Then, with the suddenness of a thrown switch, the sound stopped.

Blade lay on his stomach listening.

Nothing. Nothing but the cries of jungle birds, the hum of insects, the growl of some far-off animal. He waited a long time before venturing a little way out toward the stream.

He looked up, and his worst fears were confirmed.

Directly above him, motionless and silent, hung four Menel aircraft, not more than half a kilometer up. They were needle-slim, wingless, finless, exhaustless, made of a bright metal that blazed in the sunlight. They were in line formation, exactly equidistant.

Blade crept back to report to the others.

«They're up there,» he murmured.

«Maybe they don't see us,» Rena put in hopefully.

«They see us all right,» said Blade. «Why else would they pick this one place among all others to park?»

«Why don't they attack then?» Dr. Leyndt asked, frowning.

«They're playing with us,» Stramod answered grimly. His simian face, tilted upward, was an even darker blue than usual.

«Then let's give them a good game,» said Blade. «Come on.» He led them, crouching, deeper into the sweltering maze of greenery.

Five minutes later Stramod said, «They're following us.»

Blade glanced upward. The Menel craft had moved with them, and still hung exactly overhead.

«I don't understand…» Rena began.

«I understand,» Blade said. «The aircraft can't land in this thick foliage, so they are contenting themselves with marking our position for their ground party.»

«Ground party?» Rena's eyes grew rounder.

«That's right,» said Blade. «I think we can safely assume that someone is following us on the ground.»

«Listen!» Stramod stood rigid, head cocked at an angle.

A moment later Richard could hear it too, the crashing of falling trees, the crack of splitting wood, and finally the muffled thump-thump-thump of footsteps.

«The ice dragons,» Blade said.

Though they were still far away, he could tell there were several of them. They were huge beasts, like dinosaurs, as Blade knew only too well, and on the back of each would be riding an armored Dragon Master, a human slave of the Menel, while in the wake of each immense lizard would come a ragtag raiding party, more of the Menel's human slaves.

Rena, near hysteria, cried, «We don't stand a chance!»

«Not here, perhaps,» Richard mused. «But up ahead there's a steep hill, too steep for the dragons to climb though not too steep for us, and from the top we can roll rocks down on them.» He leaped to his feet and led the way through the dense undergrowth, hacking a path with his sword. Their progress was slow, dangerously slow.

The crash and crack and heavy thumping footsteps grew louder and louder behind them. Ahead they could occasionally glimpse through the trees the tantalizing rocky hill. Above them the gleaming aircraft continued to hold position, following them.

They came to a stretch of open clearing and were able to run. As they ran the scene around him faded and Blade saw instead the wavering image of a high-ceilinged hallway. The end of the hallway was only a little way off.

Richard shouted, «This is another one of your illusions, Ngaa! I see through it! There are no ice dragons here, no jungle, no alien aircraft!»

Stramod grabbed his arm, saying, «Snap out of it, Blade! Don't let the heat get you!»

Again the jungle closed in around them and they plunged onward, hacking and sweating and panting while clouds of insects swirled around them, humming and biting.

The dragons were gaining on them. Blade could hear their harsh hissing breathing.

Blade thought, It's an illusion. An illusion.

Rena tripped and fell.

Blade turned to help her to her feet.

And saw, above the treetops, an immense reptilian head, fanged jaws gaping, forked tongue flicking in and out. At the same moment the hot stinking breath of the creature engulfed him like a wind off a burning pile of corpses, choking him, blinding him with tears.

Rena tried to crawl, as if she could hope to escape on hands and knees, but the head swung down and the jaws closed on her struggling body. Richard struck uselessly at the head with his sword.

Rena screamed as the jaws lifted her, then tossed her into the air as a child tosses a ball, then swallowed her in a single gulp.

The mouth opened again, swept downward.

Richard felt the fangs penetrate his back and chest.

He thought, I must wake up! Can I never wake up?

But there was only pain and pain and more pain as from far below Dr. Leyndt, Nilando, and Stramod stared up at him in helpless terror.