Luther swiped his wand and the tunnel walls came alight, glowing a fierce and ghostly green that revealed the Reaper’s creased and crusty hide. The creature cringed at the light, blinking its half-dozen eyes. This was a full grown beast, with scars on its scars, a veteran of many battles.
It bellowed like a moose, rattling the loose flesh deep in its gullet, and flung itself at us. A spiky feeler came whipping at my head. I ducked and swatted it away with the flat of my blade.
“Step aside!” said Luther, brushing past me.
I stumbled back, knocking into Bern again.
“What does he think he’s doing?” I said.
“Luther … uh … he … uh … he has a way with Reapers,” said Bern. “Kindred spirits, I suppose.“
Luther walked right up to the agitated beast, one palm raised, keeping his wand tucked at his side. He patted its knobby blubber and touched his forehead against the creature’s flesh, cooing something soft and creepy in a language I didn’t recognize, but it sure as hell wasn’t English.
The beast slumped and fell calm, retracting its feelers, lowering its torso to the tunnel floor. It rattled out a long and smelly exhalation like the beginning of a snore.
“You can pass now,” said Luther, softly. “Go on ahead. Slowly. Try not to bump it. Don’t even touch it.”
I pressed myself tight against the curve of the tunnel wall and squeezed through the narrow gap, trying my best to avoid the beast’s warty tubercles. This thing had to be the ugliest, grungiest Reaper I had ever seen. The garish green glow Luther conjured did it no favors. The creatures the Frelsians had domesticated seemed sleek and pretty in comparison.
Bern struggled to follow me through the tight space. He lacked flexibility in his bad leg, and seemed on the verge of losing his balance. I reached a hand out to steady him before he plunged into the thing’s blubber.
“Keep on walking!” said Luther, as we came around the backside of the Reaper. “Put some distance between you and it. Don’t worry about me, I’ll catch up.”
We strode into a darkness that was nearly absolute. I worried about stumbling into another slumbering Reaper. Yet, every step we took triggered a flash of green phosphorescence that persisted behind us leaving a trail of glowing footprints that marked our path.
“Shouldn’t we wait for him?”
“He said not to,” said Bern. “And for good reason. Those Reapers can be unpredictable.”
So I plunged ahead, taking it on faith that I wouldn’t step on a monster or plunge into a bottomless pit. The tunnels grew colder, the footing firmer, the deeper we went.
Something strange seemed to be happening to the gravity. Looking back, our glowing prints seemed to spiral around the entire circumference of the tunnel. Either the tunnels were slowly twisting behind us as we walked or the relationship between up and down kept shifting.
This strange sense of topsy-turviness affected more than our flesh. Something was prying at the glue connecting my consciousness to my body. I felt a weird pressure inside my skull and chest, as if my essence was trying to wiggle out of my heart and squeeze out my ear holes. It was a different feeling from switching worlds. I found it even more disturbing and uncomfortable.
A brilliant white glow grew behind us. Luther appeared, the tip of his wand ablaze like a strip of magnesium. As he came around the bend, his body was leaning at a good forty five degree angle in relation to me and Bern.
That clinched it. What I had noticed was no illusion, the gravity really was all screwy down here.
It made me dizzy and queasy, watching him approach like that, his posture going upside down and then horizontal before coming around to match our orientation. I took a deep breath and told myself that everything was okay, that this was normal.
“It’s surprisingly chilly down here,” said Bern, hugging his arms to his chest.
Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t even noticed, so distracted was I by all the other weirdness going on.
“Oh, it’s just awful,” said Luther. “But it’s nothing like the Deeps.” He pushed ahead of us.
“So how’d it go with that Reaper?” said Bern.
“Oh, no worries,” said Luther. “It’s back deep in its slumber. But I do suggest we return another way, Bern, if you don’t mind.”
“By all means,” said Bern. “I’d just as soon follow James into the Deeps than have another run-in with that beastie. I don’t care if you are the beast-whisperer.”
As we strode along, each of our bodies at a different angle, Bern yanked a knife from his belt and slashed a chunk of roots from the tunnel wall and proceeded to weave himself another item of clothing. He made himself a crude poncho, basically a blanket with a hole in the middle for his head. He made no attempt to align the warp and weft or to transform the roots into something more like yarn.
He caught me gawking at his handiwork. “Another reason to miss Lille,” he said. “She was much better at this Weaving stuff, than me. Particularly when it came to cloth. But … whatever. It does the job.” His gaze stuck on me when he looked up. “James … uh … there’s … there’s something wrong with you … with your complexion.”
“My what?”
Luther whipped around to see. He tossed up his head in exasperation and rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe it. You’re leaving us again? Now? What is wrong with you? We are almost there.”
“I’m not fading. Am I?”
Bern nodded. “Sorry James. But yes. I’m afraid you are.”
I held up my hand and found stubs where my fingers had been.
“Wait! I don’t have to go. I can hold myself back. I’ve done it before.”
“This close to the Core? I’m afraid not,” said Luther. “You have no control whatsoever down here. The forces are too powerful. Your soul will go wherever it wants to be and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Crap! I’ll … I’ll be right back. I promise. You guys will wait for me. Right? Right?”
I was gone before they could respond.
