[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
to the water's edge. "Maybe it's hell to you, but I find the quiet and openness kind of attractive."
To his surprise, Ethan had discovered he was also trembling. The giant's words brought him back to
nor-mal. This was a Tran conception of Hell, not his. It was only a cold, dark place.
Holding his torch firmly he moved to join Septem-ber. A glance over the frozen berm showed nothing but
fluid blackness. It was as if he were staring up-ward at the night sky instead of down into the bowels of
some primeval ocean. And like the night sky, this subterranean sea blazed with stars and nebulae of its
own.
Thousands of tiny luminous creatures darted and jerked their way through the inky water. Green, hot pink,
bright yellow, crimson, and cherry red every imaginable color indentified some small blazing bit of
existence. Compared to this well of magnificence, where every creature no matter how small was cloaked
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Fos...%20-%20Mission%20to%20Moulokin(1979)[v1].html (75 of 166) [10/15/2004 12:52:51 PM]
Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
in gems, the atmospheric world above seemed drab and dull.
Ethan grew aware of another figure come up along-side him, but did not shift his gaze from that
shim-mering palette of life. "How can they live down here, Milliken, beneath the ice?"
"Perhaps there is vegetation which releases oxygen slowly, or volcanic production of gases." The teacher
shrugged. "Evidently there is enough to sustain a mul-titude of forms."
"It is very beautiful." Ethan spun. Elfa was stand-ing behind them, peering almost shyly into the glassy
blackness. She smiled hesitantly at Ethan. He couldn't help but smile back. She was not fully recovered,
but she was no longer in shock.
His gaze traveled to the glistening icicles, false sta-lactites, to the columns that exploded torchlight into a
thousand tiny replicas of its source, none of which could match for diversity and beauty the swimming
bead-shapes of the water dwellers. How lovely is Hades, he mused, when it is other than one's own. Why,
it was neither hot nor fearsome here, and there was no wind at all.
A whirlpool of luminescent life eddied ecstatically in the pale blue light of his beamer. He turned it
downward, piercing the water to a depth of several meters. It was as if the beamer were a vacuum,
suck-ing up ever more delirious dancers from the depths below.
The water erupted, sent them stumbling or falling backward.
Ethan saw a mouth. Rubies and emeralds, tormalines and topazes, ozmidines, ferrosilicate crystals mirror-
bright decorated the cavern within a cavern. Stalac-tites and stalagmites of vitreous, transparent teeth
lined the jaws. Around it was a face wide and fat like a toad's, with a single searchlight of a mad
vermilion eye above the bejeweled mouth. Black, slick flesh rip-pled in folds around eye and mouth, a
pulpy envelope to hold organs loosely in place.
Whatever it was, it had been drawn from familiar depths by Ethan's bright beam. Brave as they were some
of the sailors fainted in place. Others forgot dis-cipline and command in their rush to squeeze them-selves
back up the tunnel.
September and Williams already were firing at the apparition with beams tighter and more deadly than
Ethan's, while he strove frantically to readjust the set-ting on his own. Each time a blue beam touched the
creature's flesh the hallucination-made-real produced a gargantuan grunt. The humans fired as they
re-treated back toward the tunnel.
Mouth and eye rose roof high above the water and hunched after them. Several more bolts struck it. The
tumorous shape came down on the ice beach with a crash that echoed energetically 'round the cavern,
gen-erating a low splintering sound. It lay still and unmov-ing, quartz teeth shining in the torchlight, the
single round eye with its absurdly small black pupil staring blindly at them.
Screaming still sounded from up the tunnel, how-ever, Hunnar had his sword out and was trying to force
his way through the panicked mob.
"Cowards of Sofold! The daemon is dead, slain by the light knives of our friends who are half your size!"
The mad rush upward slowed, ceased. Screams be-came anxious or uneasy murmurs. "When you are
fin-ished whimpering, you may rejoin us." He sheathed his sword and deliberately chivaned downward at
top speed, showing blatant disregard for what might await him within the cavern.
Gradually the sailors drifted after. They spread out below the tunnel mouth to gaze in delicious horror at
the hellbeast resting on the ice. It was no less fear-some and not the least bit comical for having a body
that was one-third head.
Displaying utter indifference to post-dying reflexes, September strode up to the creature which Eer-
Meesach had already dubbed Kalankatht (which translates from the Tran roughly as "beast-which-is-all-
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Fos...%20-%20Mission%20to%20Moulokin(1979)[v1].html (76 of 166) [10/15/2004 12:52:51 PM]
Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
teeth-and-no-tail") and stuck his head into the gaping mouth. Frozen open, the upper jaw was still a meter
above his hooded head.
Though two meters long on average, the transpar-ent teeth were no thicker around than a man's finger.
There were hundreds in the chamber-sized maw. Short, delicate-looking fins projected from back and
sides, while the blunt tail was flattened vertically for swimming and steering. It could not be very fast in
pursuit of its prey, but it could bite at a lot of ocean. Williams was examing the corpse with fine
scien-tific detachment, though as a strong believer in the lingering independence of certain muscular
functions he chose not to stray so near the jaws as had Septem-ber. "Eye, mouth, and stomach. No waste
space or organs." He moved behind the nightmare, out of sight. Ethan and Hunnar had joined September
before the gaping mouth. "What more natural than that there be devils in Hell?"
Hesitantly, the knight reached out to touch the wet black skin. "Then you believe it a daemon of the
un-derworld also?"
"Skua likes to fancify," said Ethan. "There are sim-ilar, natural creatures living in the deeps of my own
world's seas. Some are bigger than this one, though none quite as outlandish." As life-fluids ceased
flowing within the body, the phosphorescences around mouth and sides were beginning to fade, lights and
life going out together.
"This water is only part of your liquid ocean, the same kind of water that forms the ice above us, the ice
that rafts chivan across, and that surrounds Sofold." Ethan touched his torch to the floor, tasted of the
water it produced. "Ice to liquid, just as you drink it aboard ship or back in Wannome."
"Then the philosophers are right," the knight said. "The inside of the world is fluid."
Ethan smiled. "Oddly enough, that's right, but the liquid is metal and not water. Williams can explain it
better than I can." He turned, called out. "Milliken?"
"This ends our exploring the sea." September clipped his beamer back to his waist. "Next cousin of this
mobile mouth we lure up is liable to be bigger still. What're you yellin' at, young feller-me-lad?"
"We can't find Milliken. I thought he'd be studying this body, but& " [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl freetocraft.keep.pl
to the water's edge. "Maybe it's hell to you, but I find the quiet and openness kind of attractive."
To his surprise, Ethan had discovered he was also trembling. The giant's words brought him back to
nor-mal. This was a Tran conception of Hell, not his. It was only a cold, dark place.
Holding his torch firmly he moved to join Septem-ber. A glance over the frozen berm showed nothing but
fluid blackness. It was as if he were staring up-ward at the night sky instead of down into the bowels of
some primeval ocean. And like the night sky, this subterranean sea blazed with stars and nebulae of its
own.
Thousands of tiny luminous creatures darted and jerked their way through the inky water. Green, hot pink,
bright yellow, crimson, and cherry red every imaginable color indentified some small blazing bit of
existence. Compared to this well of magnificence, where every creature no matter how small was cloaked
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Fos...%20-%20Mission%20to%20Moulokin(1979)[v1].html (75 of 166) [10/15/2004 12:52:51 PM]
Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
in gems, the atmospheric world above seemed drab and dull.
Ethan grew aware of another figure come up along-side him, but did not shift his gaze from that
shim-mering palette of life. "How can they live down here, Milliken, beneath the ice?"
"Perhaps there is vegetation which releases oxygen slowly, or volcanic production of gases." The teacher
shrugged. "Evidently there is enough to sustain a mul-titude of forms."
"It is very beautiful." Ethan spun. Elfa was stand-ing behind them, peering almost shyly into the glassy
blackness. She smiled hesitantly at Ethan. He couldn't help but smile back. She was not fully recovered,
but she was no longer in shock.
His gaze traveled to the glistening icicles, false sta-lactites, to the columns that exploded torchlight into a
thousand tiny replicas of its source, none of which could match for diversity and beauty the swimming
bead-shapes of the water dwellers. How lovely is Hades, he mused, when it is other than one's own. Why,
it was neither hot nor fearsome here, and there was no wind at all.
A whirlpool of luminescent life eddied ecstatically in the pale blue light of his beamer. He turned it
downward, piercing the water to a depth of several meters. It was as if the beamer were a vacuum,
suck-ing up ever more delirious dancers from the depths below.
The water erupted, sent them stumbling or falling backward.
Ethan saw a mouth. Rubies and emeralds, tormalines and topazes, ozmidines, ferrosilicate crystals mirror-
bright decorated the cavern within a cavern. Stalac-tites and stalagmites of vitreous, transparent teeth
lined the jaws. Around it was a face wide and fat like a toad's, with a single searchlight of a mad
vermilion eye above the bejeweled mouth. Black, slick flesh rip-pled in folds around eye and mouth, a
pulpy envelope to hold organs loosely in place.
Whatever it was, it had been drawn from familiar depths by Ethan's bright beam. Brave as they were some
of the sailors fainted in place. Others forgot dis-cipline and command in their rush to squeeze them-selves
back up the tunnel.
September and Williams already were firing at the apparition with beams tighter and more deadly than
Ethan's, while he strove frantically to readjust the set-ting on his own. Each time a blue beam touched the
creature's flesh the hallucination-made-real produced a gargantuan grunt. The humans fired as they
re-treated back toward the tunnel.
Mouth and eye rose roof high above the water and hunched after them. Several more bolts struck it. The
tumorous shape came down on the ice beach with a crash that echoed energetically 'round the cavern,
gen-erating a low splintering sound. It lay still and unmov-ing, quartz teeth shining in the torchlight, the
single round eye with its absurdly small black pupil staring blindly at them.
Screaming still sounded from up the tunnel, how-ever, Hunnar had his sword out and was trying to force
his way through the panicked mob.
"Cowards of Sofold! The daemon is dead, slain by the light knives of our friends who are half your size!"
The mad rush upward slowed, ceased. Screams be-came anxious or uneasy murmurs. "When you are
fin-ished whimpering, you may rejoin us." He sheathed his sword and deliberately chivaned downward at
top speed, showing blatant disregard for what might await him within the cavern.
Gradually the sailors drifted after. They spread out below the tunnel mouth to gaze in delicious horror at
the hellbeast resting on the ice. It was no less fear-some and not the least bit comical for having a body
that was one-third head.
Displaying utter indifference to post-dying reflexes, September strode up to the creature which Eer-
Meesach had already dubbed Kalankatht (which translates from the Tran roughly as "beast-which-is-all-
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Fos...%20-%20Mission%20to%20Moulokin(1979)[v1].html (76 of 166) [10/15/2004 12:52:51 PM]
Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
teeth-and-no-tail") and stuck his head into the gaping mouth. Frozen open, the upper jaw was still a meter
above his hooded head.
Though two meters long on average, the transpar-ent teeth were no thicker around than a man's finger.
There were hundreds in the chamber-sized maw. Short, delicate-looking fins projected from back and
sides, while the blunt tail was flattened vertically for swimming and steering. It could not be very fast in
pursuit of its prey, but it could bite at a lot of ocean. Williams was examing the corpse with fine
scien-tific detachment, though as a strong believer in the lingering independence of certain muscular
functions he chose not to stray so near the jaws as had Septem-ber. "Eye, mouth, and stomach. No waste
space or organs." He moved behind the nightmare, out of sight. Ethan and Hunnar had joined September
before the gaping mouth. "What more natural than that there be devils in Hell?"
Hesitantly, the knight reached out to touch the wet black skin. "Then you believe it a daemon of the
un-derworld also?"
"Skua likes to fancify," said Ethan. "There are sim-ilar, natural creatures living in the deeps of my own
world's seas. Some are bigger than this one, though none quite as outlandish." As life-fluids ceased
flowing within the body, the phosphorescences around mouth and sides were beginning to fade, lights and
life going out together.
"This water is only part of your liquid ocean, the same kind of water that forms the ice above us, the ice
that rafts chivan across, and that surrounds Sofold." Ethan touched his torch to the floor, tasted of the
water it produced. "Ice to liquid, just as you drink it aboard ship or back in Wannome."
"Then the philosophers are right," the knight said. "The inside of the world is fluid."
Ethan smiled. "Oddly enough, that's right, but the liquid is metal and not water. Williams can explain it
better than I can." He turned, called out. "Milliken?"
"This ends our exploring the sea." September clipped his beamer back to his waist. "Next cousin of this
mobile mouth we lure up is liable to be bigger still. What're you yellin' at, young feller-me-lad?"
"We can't find Milliken. I thought he'd be studying this body, but& " [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]