The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (15 page)

Tassin gazed
at his profile, her heart aching. She had a terrible foreboding
that Sabre would not survive this quest, and emptiness grew inside
her. There were times when she glimpsed something in his eyes, but
it was always so fleeting that she could not be sure of what it
was. It could have been sadness or tenderness or both, but his
guard was always too quick for her to ascertain it. He was no
longer the teasing man who had revelled in his freedom and laughed
at her pompous airs. Over the months, he had become dangerously
intent, a panther stalking its kill.

Clenching her
teeth to stop them chattering, she envied Dena's warm place in his
arms. She wished he would hold her close like that, but knew he
would not. He was too angry with her for coming to the Core. In
truth, she was terrified of what lay ahead, yet she refused to be
parted from him. Whatever time he had left, she was going to share
with him. If only he felt the same way about her. Lost in dreams,
she did not notice the flashes that heralded the next Change. The
snow and cold vanished, and a flat expanse of grey rock riddled
with fissures and cracks under a brilliant blue sky replaced
it.

Sabre jumped
down and started to lead the donkeys forward. Tassin joined him,
leaving Dena alone on the cart, for Purr had vanished as soon as
reality had Changed. Her nape hairs prickled, and she stopped, her
hand dropping to her laser. Sabre already had his out as the air
parted before them, and a man stepped through.

Tassin gasped
and gagged. What stood before them had once been a man, but his
resemblance now was minimal. His skin had the pallor of a week-old
corpse, his cheeks and eyes were sunken, and his near naked body
was shrivelled. A filthy, half-rotten rag hung about his hips,
green with mildew and dappled with brown stains that might have
been blood. Thin grey hair straggled over his shoulders, and his
nails were long, curved and twisted. The stench that emanated from
him was that of an open grave, musty and putrid. His withered mouth
opened, and he spoke in a dry, clotted voice.

"Go back. You
are forbidden."

Sabre kept the
laser aimed at the creature. "Who are you?"

"I am a
guardian, you will not pass."

Tassin glanced
at Dena, who looked like she wanted to be sick, a hand clamped over
her mouth.

Sabre looked
unimpressed. "We will pass, don't try to stop us."

The air parted
again, and five more ghouls stepped forth, three women and two men,
one built like a wrestler, two short and plump, another tall and
thin, the last of average build. All had the same pallid skin and
straggly grey hair. The first one spoke again.

"You have
proven a match for the beasts, but you will not prevail against the
guardians."

"Oh? Why is
that?"

"We are
already dead."

Tassin
shuddered, and Sabre tensed, his finger tightening on the laser's
firing button. "Then how do you stand there and speak to me?"

"The Core
gives us the power to guard it. People cannot be changed as the
animals are, they…" the creature broke off, shivered, then said,
"Go back, this is your last warning."

"No." Sabre
fired, the laser bolt burning a hole through the ghoul's chest.
Dark, brownish blood oozed from the wound, but the creature did not
even flinch. Sabre fired again, this time at its head, which
exploded like a rotten pumpkin, spraying decayed grey matter. Still
the creature stood, then stepped forward.

"Bloody hell,"
Sabre muttered.

The other
ghouls shambled towards them. Sabre fired at the leader's legs,
causing it to stagger and fall when one gave way. Tassin fired at
another, her shot wild as she backed away from the zombies' slow
advance. She hardly noticed the Change that flickered through the
landscape, transforming it to a shallow lake from which spindly,
large-leafed trees grew. The ankle-deep water hampered the ghouls a
little, but they came on. Sabre fired at the zombies' legs,
bringing them down, but they still moved grotesquely, robbed only
of the ability to walk. More and more stepped from the air, old men
and women, youngsters, even children, their hollow eyes blank and
staring, their withered faces expressionless.

The donkeys
turned and trotted away, not liking what they faced, forcing Dena
to jump down and stop them. Of Purr there was still no sign; the
mosscat had vanished. The zombies walked too slowly to be
effective, and Sabre was able reload his laser and cut them down
before they reached him. A huge, bear-like beast armed with long
fangs and scythe-like claws emerged from the air behind the ghouls.
It cowered from the grey-skinned zombies, then spotted Sabre and
Tassin. With a guttural growl it charged Sabre, who shot it. Its
lifeless corpse slid to a stop at his feet as another Change
came.

A scrubby,
semi desert terrain of white sand dotted with solid gold and
tarnished silver boulders replaced the shallow lake in a blink.
Sabre reloaded again as more and more undead stepped from the air.
All manner of monsters accompanied them, from snarling dire-wolves
to hissing, dragon-like lizards that spat acid. Some of the beasts
turned on each other and entered into bloody battles, but most
advanced on the intruders as if some unseen power goaded them.
Sabre retreated, cutting down ghouls and monsters alike with broad
sweeps of the laser, reloading every few minutes when the blue beam
died. Corpses piled up before him, some still moving uselessly,
others freshly dead.

Tassin handed
him more power packs from the cart, but they were being used up
rapidly. A sudden inspiration struck her, and she pulled the sonlar
from the cart and handed it to him when next he turned for more
power packs. He glanced at it, then fired a sweeping blast of
booming white fire at the horde. Almost all of them vanished in a
spray of crimson, coating the alien landscape beyond with red and
brown blood and digging a crescent-shaped crater in the sand. The
survivors ignored their fellows' death and continued towards their
foes. The sonlar's boom had hardly faded when the air seemed to
boil.

Fearsome
beasts jostled each other as they stepped forth, and droves of
blank-eyed ghouls accompanied them, filling the air with a foetid
stench. The Core's power seemed infinite. Sabre annihilated the
monsters again and again, but still more appeared, larger and more
fearsome than ever. Ghouls were now absent from the throng, and
packs of dire-wolves mingled with herds of scaly five-metre tall
monstrosities wielding two-metre bone blades that grew from their
cheeks.

Hordes of
shaggy pig-eyed creatures whose broad, frog-like mouths were filled
with shark teeth shambled beside giant insects that resembled
scorpions, their stinging tails arched over their backs. Between
their legs, six-metre snakes slithered at an amazing speed,
striking at those around them, their cold green eyes turning
constantly to the trio before them. Sabre wiped them out yet again,
but the air continued to spew more forth.

Sabre turned,
took Tassin's arm and yanked her around. "We can't hold them,
there's too many, run!"

Tassin ran to
the donkeys and hauled them forward. The beasts needed little
inducement to break into a swift trot, their ears laid back,
sensing the pursuit. Sabre followed, firing at monsters that
threatened to overtake them, and the slower creatures were left
behind, thinning the opposition. They ran through a Change, and a
true desert replaced the scrub as Sabre caught up.

"Circle back,
we're going the wrong way!"

Tassin pulled
the donkeys, turning them. Dena panted alongside, hanging onto the
harness and gripping a spent laser. Sabre dropped back to shoot two
monsters, using his laser again. Many lumbering beasts still
followed, but some loped off, apparently losing interest in the
chase. By the time Sabre had shot the last of those that persisted,
they were heading back towards the Core.

The soft sand
that sucked at Tassin's feet made running strenuous. A Change came,
and green grassland appeared, bringing welcome relief to her aching
legs. A stitch tugged at her flank and her breath came in harsh
gasps. Dena lost her grip on the harness and fell with a cry, and
Tassin stopped the donkeys. Sabre scooped up the child and tossed
her onto the cart, then hauled the donkeys forward. Tassin stumbled
after him, clasping her side. For the moment, nothing appeared to
block their way. It seemed they had left the entry point behind,
and the monsters that still emerged from it, finding no prey,
either wandered off or attacked each other.

The Core could
not move the entry point once it had been established, apparently,
so presumably it had to create a new one in each world. Tassin
stumbled on numb legs, longing to shout at Sabre to stop, but
determined not to. She hung onto the back of the cart instead, and
was dragged behind it. He glanced back after a while and slowed the
donkeys to a walk, for which she was most grateful. Sweat ran down
her, and her legs burnt. Sabre had not begun to sweat or pant, and
walked briskly beside the donkeys, alert for danger.

A sheer rock
face appeared before them. Sabre stopped the donkeys and looked
around. They stood in a deep canyon running at right angles to
their path, preventing any travel in that direction. Rocky spires
clawed at a grey sky, carved into odd shapes by wind and rain.
Tassin sank down on the hard ground with a groan, her legs
cramping, her gut lanced with pain from the stitch in her side.
Sabre squatted beside her and handed her a water skin, and the
water a soothed her dry throat. She glimpsed that indefinable
emotion in his eyes, then he turned his head to scan the canyon for
danger.

Without
looking at her, he said, "You ride in the cart with Dena. From now
on, we have to move fast. It seems we're getting close to the Core,
and it's starting to really fight back. I'm going to have to use
the sword; we must save the lasers."

She nodded. "I
wonder where Purr is."

"If he's got
any sense, he's far away by now."

Tassin nodded.
"This is not his fight."

He turned to
her, and his eyes bored into hers. "It isn't yours either. Tassin,
please go back."

For a moment
she was too surprised to say anything, then she shook her head.
"No."

He jumped up.
"You're a fool. You'll get us all killed."

"No, I won't.
I've helped you already, fighting those things."

He snorted and
stared down the canyon, his face grim.

Tassin
shuddered, remembering the ghouls. "Those things were dead, weren't
they?" She could still hardly believe they had not been part of a
bad dream.

"Yeah. The
first one said that people can't be changed. I think I know how it
works now." He glanced at her. "The Core doesn't create these
monsters, it changes them. It must draw them from the
Flux-realities, then change them into the things we see. That
explains Purr's memories of a time before he came here. But it
can't change people. Apparently they die, so it reanimates them and
uses their corpses with their spirits intact."

She swallowed.
"Why do you say with their spirits intact?"

"Because the
one who spoke got quite chatty back there. He was about to explain
it all, and the Core stopped him. It controls them, but they aren't
empty shells. They're still trapped in their rotting bodies."

She gulped,
tasting bile. "That's horrible."

"Maybe that's
why Purr came through with so little change. I don't know if he
could shift before, but he's certainly no monster. If it's linked
to intelligence, that might explain it. Purr's as clever as we are,
but the other monsters are just animals, and so they could be
changed, but people die from the shock."

She nodded.
"Maybe it will let the ones we mutilated die now, since they're
useless to it."

"Maybe. But
it'll replace them. This thing isn't only intelligent and powerful,
it's also evil. None of this is coincidental. I think that thing
has a plan, probably to rule this planet."

"And kill all
the people?"

He shrugged.
"It doesn't need them. It can populate this world from the
Flux-realities, or it might not want anything to live here. It all
depends on what the Core is."

Tassin stared
at him, then looked away when he glanced at her and drank some more
water, her mind numb with horror.

Chapter Ten

The canyon
vanished, and a chilly terrain of tough, sparse grass growing in
frozen, snow-dappled ground replaced it. An icy wind tore at them
as Tassin climbed to her feet, and Sabre boosted her into the cart.
He pulled the donkeys forward, one braying in mournful protest.
Dena crawled into Tassin's lap, and they huddled together for
warmth. Sabre coaxed the donkeys into a trot, loping beside them at
a mile eating pace. The bouncing cart jarred and jolted the girls
despite the cushion of hay, but Tassin's throbbing legs were glad
of the rest.

For a while,
nothing attacked, and Sabre made swift progress over the tundra.
Two relatively tame Changes passed, each of a shorter duration now,
only a few minutes long. They were in a pretty Flux-world of
verdant saffron grass and miniature blue trees when the guardians
stepped forth again.

This time
their pasty skins glowed with a sickly yellow light and their
hollow eyes gleamed redly. Sabre leapt at the nearest without
hesitation. Tassin gasped in horror and Dena shrieked, burrowing
into the hay. Sabre drew the sword and slashed at the corpse's
legs, sending it sprawling. As he struck, yellow light leapt from
the zombie, arcing into him with a crackle of raw power.

Sabre gave a
startled yell and arced over backwards like a mad acrobat. He
landed heavily and writhed, his lips pulled back in a grimace of
agony. The cyber band flashed red as he rolled, unable to control
his limbs properly. A spark of yellow leapt from the brow band, and
Sabre staggered to his feet. He looked dazed, then he bent and
retrieved the sword, straightening to lunge at another zombie with
a growl.