(eng) Patrick Weekes - Rogues of the Republic 03 by The Paladin Caper

Author:The Paladin Caper [Caper, The Paladin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“We want in,” said the Glimmering Man, or the incomprehensible titanic creature working the Glimmering Man like a puppet. “It’s more interesting where you are. Things taste better. We’ve eaten most of the good-tasting things here.”

Hessler coughed. “I’m afraid that the path to my world is blocked,” he said, trying to push aside the way that the thing’s words reverberated in his head, as if for a moment he had thought them himself.

“It is very difficult,” agreed the Glimmering Man. The great mass of shimmering rainbows over pink . . . skin, Hessler decided . . . coiled, then stretched, not like a living creature with muscle and tendons but like oil sliding across a hot pan, and all it once it was around Hessler, as he turned to try to follow the movement. Instead of the strange alien starscape, there were rainbows all around him, shining and shimmering in a great sphere, perhaps twenty or thirty yards across, with just him and the Glimmering Man inside. “The things that make up your world are too heavy. When we touched the core of it, we could not stay ourselves, and we collapsed into nothing.”

“Yes, as I recall, the Glimmering Folk could not come to the ground,” Hessler said, his voice going up in pitch ever so slightly despite himself. “I assume that was one of the reasons you created creatures to fight for you on the ground against the ancients.”

“Yes. The things we made called this place the Shadowlands. And the ancients, the others? Are they still there?” the Glimmering Man asked as the coils around Hessler tightened into a featureless sphere offering no escape. “They tasted different. They came from below, and we came from above.” The words twisted around in Hessler’s head, steadily tightening in his skull. “They made the door for us, and they were very angry when we came through.” As Hessler’s eyes began to pound in time with his own pulse, the Glimmering Man said, “If I made a door, I would be happy with whatever came through. Daemons or ancients or you.”

Hessler’s vision was going dark at the edges. “This is going to make for a fascinating paper,” he said, and flung out a hand, “but I cannot write it if my brain explodes.”

He conjured an illusion of flame, a ball of fire between him and the Glimmering Man.

At least, that had been the intent. What actually happened was that the Glimmering Man’s skin melted, and then went scorched black as the Glimmering Man opened a toothless mouth in a wordless scream. The great massive coils that had formed the sphere around him darted back far faster than something so large should have been able to move, and in a flash, it was over him, or across from him, still vast but not all around anymore.

It roared, shaking the tiny little cord from which the Glimmering Man hung like a man shaking a finger that had been burned on a stove, and its great

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