David Baldacci - The Finisher

I reached for Delph’s hand at the same moment his reached for mine. We walked to the middle of the room, stopped, and gazed around like two just-born Wugs first discovering what was outside the bellies of our mums.

“Lotta books,” noted Delph quite unnecessarily.

I had no idea there were these many books in existence. My first thought was that John would love this room, followed by a pang of depression. He was not the same John, was he?

“What do we do now?” asked Delph in a hushed voice.

That was a reasonable question. I supposed there was only one thing to do. I stepped toward the closest bookcase and slid out a book. I wish I hadn’t.

The instant I opened the book, the entire room transformed into something as unlike a room as it was possible to be. Gone were the books and the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Replacing them was a hurricane of images, voices, screams, slashes of light, vortexes of movement, Wugs, winged sleps, an army of flying jabbits and the vilest creatures dirt-bound. Garms and amarocs and freks hurtling over and through piles of bodies. And then there were non-Wugs, colossals, warriors in chain mail, things with peaked ears and red faces and blackened bodies, and shrouded shapes lurking in shadows from which streams of light burst forth. And then came explosions and kaleidoscopes of flames and towers of ice plummeting into abysses so deep they seemed to have no bottom.

My heart was in my throat. I felt Delph’s fingers fall away from mine. In this maelstrom of Hel, I turned and saw him running away. I wanted to flee too, but my feet seemed rooted where they were. I looked down at my hands. Still there was the open book. Out of the pages was pouring everything we were seeing.

I am not so brilliant as my brother, but simple problems sometimes have simple answers. I slammed shut the book. When the two halves smacked together, the room was once more just a room. I stood there out of breath, though I had not moved an inch.

I turned to see Delph bent over gasping for air, his face pale as goat’s milk.

“Bloody Hel,” he yelled.

“Bloody Hel,” I said more quietly, in agreement. I wanted to yell it too, actually, but my lungs lacked the capacity to do so.

“The Hall of Truth. All these books, Delph. Where did they come from? They can’t all be about Wormwood. It just isn’t that, well —”

“Important,” Delph finished for me. He shrugged. “Dunno, Vega Jane. Can’t make head nor tail of it. But let’s get outta this place.” He started for the stairs.

And that’s precisely when we heard it coming. Delph retreated to stand next to me. By the sound it was making, we were not about to be confronted by jabbits.

I thought this a good thing. Until I saw what came through the entrance.

Then all I could think to do was scream. And I did.

I would have preferred the jabbits.

WHEN THE CREATUREstepped into the room, the vast space seemed too small to contain it. I knew exactly what it was. I had seen a drawing and description of it in Quentin Herms’s book on the Quag. His illustration did not do it terrifying justice.

It was a cobble.

Not nearly as large as the colossals I had been pitted against, it was still horrifyingly huge. And it looked to be made of rock. But that was not the most alarming element of the thing. It had three bodies, all male and all attached, shoulder to shoulder. It had three heads and three sets of tiny wings growing out of its muscular backs. And when I looked down at its hands, I saw three swords and three axes. When I looked at the three faces, they each held the same expression: hatred fueled by fury.

“You trespass here,” one of the mouths said. Its voice was like a shriek crossed with a thunder-thrust.

I would have said something back, only I was so scared, words would not form in my throat.

Another mouth pronounced, “The punishment for trespassing is death.”

The cobble took a step forward, its immense weight threatening to crush the marble floor. I barely had time to jerk Delph downward before three axes soared over the spot where our heads had just been. They flew across the room and embedded in the far bookcase, knocking it and two of its neighbors over. As books toppled to the floor and flew open, the room was once more engulfed in the fury unleashed from their freed pages.

I grabbed Delph’s hand and jerked him to cover behind one of the fallen bookcases. For a sliver, I ignored the images cascading around us, although it wasn’t easy. A banshee screamed away in my ear. That creature too had been in Quentin’s Quag book.

One of the cobble’s swords sliced the bookcase we were hiding behind in half; the blade stopped an inch from turning me into two Wugs. Delph started hurling books at it, but the cobble crushed the bookcase under its two middle legs as I flung myself away from it and slid across the room, crashing into another bookcase and causing a multitude of tomes to rain down on my head. Creatures great and small, long-dead Wugs, and creations I had no way to even recognize poured out of these fat volumes. The room could not hope to contain this maelstrom of mayhem.

I slipped my gloved hand in my pocket, drew out the Elemental, willed it to full form, drew my arm back, aimed and fired it directly at the middle of the cobble. It connected and disappeared in a huge wall of smoke. When the smoke cleared, the middle body of the cobble was no longer. I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed slightly. However, the other two bodies, freed from their mate, were still standing. Well, actually, they were running directly at me.

I looked wildly around for the Elemental. Then I saw it. The spear had taken a long arc around the room and was now heading back to me. Then a sword thrown by one of the cobbles collided with it, knocking it violently off course. It slammed with great velocity against a wall of bookcases. They tumbled down and, to my horror, the Elemental became trapped under them. As one of the cobbles surged straight at me, his sword held high for the killing stroke, I saw a blur of motion to my right.

“No, Delph!” I screamed.

Delph either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to hear me. He slammed into one of the cobble’s thighs. The creature was so massive that as big and strong as Delph was, he was like a bird crashing against a solid wall. Delph slumped to the floor, the senses shaken clean from him. Before I could move, the cobble had lifted him off the ground and flung him through the air as if he were a bit of parchment. I watched in horror as Delph sailed the entire length of the room and crashed into another wall of bookcases.

I started to run toward him, but I was blinded by a fiery image that had come soaring out of one of the books flying past my face. I tripped and fell to the floor. On the way down, I turned and saw a sword slashing through the air where I had been standing.

The cobble was now right over me. It raised the sword above its head and was just about to plunge it downward and separate my legs from the rest of me when I soared straight upward and shot past it. This was my true advantage against my massive opponent.

Under my cloak, Destin was warm to the touch. I zipped along the perimeter of the wall, heading toward Delph. I wouldn’t make it. I had lost track of the other cobble until it reared up directly in front of me. I had forgotten about the ruddy wings on the monstrous back. It seemed impossible that a set of fragile wings could lift such an enormous weight. But I was nimble while the cobble was not.

I flew under its arm and then around its back. It spun around, trying to keep me in sight. I kept flying in circles, faster and faster, pushing Destin and myself harder than I ever had. The cobble kept spinning too and started resembling the bonce I would rotate on the ground when I was a very young.