don’t!
Something stirred the air and it eddied slyly. A long tentacle of grass curled around her index finger. A foreign awareness touched her.
Oh yes, something was there, even if was just lackey fungoids and grasses passing on the message of her arrival.She pulled her hand back, wiping it on her jeans. It felt…unclean.
“I’ve come to ask for passage to the god Smoking Mirror.” She kept her voice calm and rational as she turned toward the source of silent power, though she knew that what she was saying and thinking would sound patently irrational to anyone who shunned information acquired through sources other than the standard five senses, the classroom, or CNN.
She rose and walked forward, stood at the mouth of the cave, half in the dark, half in the light. She saw nothing unusual that was common to places of natural worship—nothing beautiful, amazing, or even sinister. Looking closely, she could see that the cavern may have been natural but clearly man had been at work inside it, smoothing the floor and such. And after the heat of the desert it seemed pleasantly cool, offering thousands of years of thick insulation against the sun. It tempted her.
There was a current in the air, though—an eddy of power that only a fool would ignore. The darkness felt tangible. It rubbed on her skin and she tasted it on her tongue. It was faintly metallic. Actually, it tasted of blood. If she went any farther, she would be wading into the torrents of the supernatural. Was that really what she wanted?
Hide or take the ride. Did she go back to Miguel and ask for his help, or stay and face the unknown?
She peered at the water that moved so sluggishly, a black worm burrowing through the cave. This was the local river Styx? It seemed rather dark and narrow, and generally uninspiring for a place of epic death and rebirth. But perhaps Hollywood had given her unrealistic expectations of the underworld. Would a smart god want any obvious markers guiding people to his lair?
Especially if he weren’t a god at all, but merely a very long-lived monster.
She slid a foot a few inches further into the cave and had a moment of disorientation. There was north and south, east and west, up and down—and then there was this place, this time. It felt terrible—dead. Evil. Her courage failed her.
Cherie, run!
Okay, I’m outta here .
Suddenly a body welled up out of the dark river, an upright form but not of a man. Fast as she was, there was no chance for Ninon to get away. It dragged her into the dark and she found herself at the edge of the water, laid out flat on a small altar she hadn’t noticed before, her mind knocked clean of all logical thought as something powerful and terrible rolled through.
He was a giant, twice her size, with a face of stone and jaws wide enough to bite off her head. But that wasn’t what terrified her most. It was the feeling of power that surrounded him, an invisible aura that nevertheless burned her eyes. If he wanted, he could stop her heart, sear her flesh, cremate her mind. She was helpless, her body a prison that held her heightened senses at his mercy.
And it was slightly cliché, but the god smelled of sulfur, just as she had expected.
His obsidian eyes watched her as she tried to recall how to breathe. Something moved against her leg, inching upward. It paused at the gun she had shoved in her pants and patted the weapon curiously. She wished she thought the moving thing was a penis, but knew it was not. An image of a giant leech popped into her head, something thick like an elephant’s trunk, looking for a place to latch on to her bare flesh and suck her dry. Also, behind the gaps in his giant, grinding teeth she saw something move. It gleamed like a silver needle but was as long as an ice pick. It reminded her of a scorpion’s tail.
It didn’t seem likely, but Ninon prayed that somehow the telegraph plants outside had also carried a message toMiguel that she was here and needed help.
Something stirred the air and it eddied slyly. A long tentacle of grass curled around her index finger. A foreign awareness touched her.
Oh yes, something was there, even if was just lackey fungoids and grasses passing on the message of her arrival.She pulled her hand back, wiping it on her jeans. It felt…unclean.
“I’ve come to ask for passage to the god Smoking Mirror.” She kept her voice calm and rational as she turned toward the source of silent power, though she knew that what she was saying and thinking would sound patently irrational to anyone who shunned information acquired through sources other than the standard five senses, the classroom, or CNN.
She rose and walked forward, stood at the mouth of the cave, half in the dark, half in the light. She saw nothing unusual that was common to places of natural worship—nothing beautiful, amazing, or even sinister. Looking closely, she could see that the cavern may have been natural but clearly man had been at work inside it, smoothing the floor and such. And after the heat of the desert it seemed pleasantly cool, offering thousands of years of thick insulation against the sun. It tempted her.
There was a current in the air, though—an eddy of power that only a fool would ignore. The darkness felt tangible. It rubbed on her skin and she tasted it on her tongue. It was faintly metallic. Actually, it tasted of blood. If she went any farther, she would be wading into the torrents of the supernatural. Was that really what she wanted?
Hide or take the ride. Did she go back to Miguel and ask for his help, or stay and face the unknown?
She peered at the water that moved so sluggishly, a black worm burrowing through the cave. This was the local river Styx? It seemed rather dark and narrow, and generally uninspiring for a place of epic death and rebirth. But perhaps Hollywood had given her unrealistic expectations of the underworld. Would a smart god want any obvious markers guiding people to his lair?
Especially if he weren’t a god at all, but merely a very long-lived monster.
She slid a foot a few inches further into the cave and had a moment of disorientation. There was north and south, east and west, up and down—and then there was this place, this time. It felt terrible—dead. Evil. Her courage failed her.
Cherie, run!
Okay, I’m outta here .
Suddenly a body welled up out of the dark river, an upright form but not of a man. Fast as she was, there was no chance for Ninon to get away. It dragged her into the dark and she found herself at the edge of the water, laid out flat on a small altar she hadn’t noticed before, her mind knocked clean of all logical thought as something powerful and terrible rolled through.
He was a giant, twice her size, with a face of stone and jaws wide enough to bite off her head. But that wasn’t what terrified her most. It was the feeling of power that surrounded him, an invisible aura that nevertheless burned her eyes. If he wanted, he could stop her heart, sear her flesh, cremate her mind. She was helpless, her body a prison that held her heightened senses at his mercy.
And it was slightly cliché, but the god smelled of sulfur, just as she had expected.
His obsidian eyes watched her as she tried to recall how to breathe. Something moved against her leg, inching upward. It paused at the gun she had shoved in her pants and patted the weapon curiously. She wished she thought the moving thing was a penis, but knew it was not. An image of a giant leech popped into her head, something thick like an elephant’s trunk, looking for a place to latch on to her bare flesh and suck her dry. Also, behind the gaps in his giant, grinding teeth she saw something move. It gleamed like a silver needle but was as long as an ice pick. It reminded her of a scorpion’s tail.
It didn’t seem likely, but Ninon prayed that somehow the telegraph plants outside had also carried a message toMiguel that she was here and needed help.
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