Deathhunter by Ian Watson

Author:Ian Watson [Watson, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0312185561
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1986-07-31T21:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Very soon they found that they could no more fly a straight course than the creature did. What seemed to be fog was actually an enormous clutter of prisms and polyhedra of many different shapes and hues, afloat in all directions. These ‘fog crystals* were all approximately the same size: just a little smaller than the cage for Death itself. They were great jewels, drifting, jostling and rotating within the ether of their flight.

If they had flown in a straight line they would soon have struck one of these — and perhaps plunged inside it, for there was something about the faces of the crystals that suggested still pools rather than hard sheets of glass. Most of the crystals seemed to repel them gently, as they passed among them. But a few attracted them, pulling softly …

Now that they were in the midst of the crystal horde the fog was no longer white at all, except away in the distance. (Or were they in the midst? Maybe they were still only on the very fringe.) The immediate vicinity was multicoloured with the spillage from all the floating prisms and gems. Further off, where all the colours of the crystals recombined, was that hint of white light. Here, though, was ruby. Nearby was sapphire. Above, was garnet. Beyond was emerald …

“Wait!”

Intrigued, Jim slowed and hovered by a ruby larger than himself which was turning very slowly, weightlessly. He pressed closer to it; it seemed softly to resist him. A safe one, this ruby, somehow… It did not want him to dive into it. (But how could it ‘want’ anything?)

Weinberger hung beside him impatiently, though reluctant to press on alone. Anyway, they had almost overhauled Death. They could allow it a little leeway.

As Jim shifted about, trying to see something inside the ruby, suddenly the jewel space opened for him — though he knew that he was still safely outside it. Its interior faces unfolded like falling cards; and he saw, as through a fish-eye lens, a world: a world in miniature, yet whole, full-grown.

It was a world of crystal crags and shattered blocks and lakes of solidified lava. Bubbles had burst in the lava before it had cooled and set into great eggcup shapes. An angry, gritty wind blew through that world. A large red sun hung in the sky, providing the ruby light. People nested in the lava eggcups which sheltered them somewhat from the grit and wind and which concentrated a little the feeble warmth provided by the sun. It did not look like a happy or a comforting world …

“Do you see? Don’t look too long! Do you seel”

Somehow, Jim feared that if he looked too long into the jewel, despite its soft, almost ‘satisfied’ repulsion of him he might end up inside it.

“No … what? Yeah —!”

“Come on, then.”

They chased Death again, recovering their lost ground, and paused again beside a smoky garnet. Catching the angle of vision for this jewel, they saw two amber suns inside. The suns were oval, linked by a curving golden whip wrapped round their waists.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.