Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

“Sorry about that.”

“Shh,” Snow Goose said urgently. “It’s called a Paija. It’s a demon, but the Cabal must have brought it here to guard the entrance. This isn’t good.”

Max whispered, “Why would it be?”

“Heh. Yes. But they must have more power than Daddy thought. Hurry.”

She took a leather thong from around her neck, pulled a tiny goose-doll out of her cleavage. She looked around at the others. “Ahh

… Johnny, we don’t want to deplete your charm. Let’s see. Oliver. Frankish Oliver.” Ollie stepped forward, and she opened the bundle that he wore around his neck, and sighed with relief. “Good. You also have a winged Inua. We can lead.” She hunkered down. “Now, the rest of you. All of you have spirit selves. All of you have both flesh and a spirit form. The fleshly form is not strong enough. But perhaps our spirit forms could prevail, If we can trick it, then its magic, its life force, will be ours to command.”

She took her totem, and Oliver’s, a hawk carved from some hard black substance. “I need string, and I need something that was part of a satellite,” she said.

Charlene handed her a pair of gloves. “Put these on.”

“No, it’s for-”

“Put them on, Snow Goose.”

The Inuit maiden shrugged with her eyebrows and pulled the thin gloves over her hands. Delicately, Charlene handed her a spool of thread. “Falling Angel cable. The gloves are made of it too. You don’t want to touch the cable with anything but the gloves.”

She nodded. She wrapped the two totems together with the thread, then looped the spool into the bundle as well. “We need a song,” she said. “A sacred song.”

“We don’t know any,” Max protested.

“No-one of yours will do. Weren’t you singing one earlier that spoke of our land? We must pull our worlds closer together.”

Orson groaned. “Kevin?”

Smiling and buck-toothed, Kevin strode forward. “Let me see… ”

Orson covered his ears as Kevin elaborated on his previous theme, picking up the adventures of Eskimo Nell, Dead-Eye Dick, and Mexican Pete in the midst of the most grueling contest in the annals of song.

Snow Goose was all business, chanting happily over her little bundle. The group chimed along with Kevin as the Ballad of Eskimo Nell progressed to its glorious climax.

“Now!” Snow Goose said. Her eyes rolled up, her lips moved, Dah dee dah dee dah diddity dee- “Inua of my Ancestors! We fight to keep your rite. Inua of my Ancestors, be at our side this night. O Children of the freezing air, come live within me now. Air spirits come, and join in war to shatter Ahk-lut’s dream, ally with us against an evil folk who would blaspheme. Set us free of heavy flesh, set us free from our illusions, set us FREE!”

The air was humming. The bridge beneath their feet vibrated like a plucked guitar string. Max could feel it in his teeth, in his fillings. (Dammit, that hurt! The feeling was like the little chill he’d had on the airplane — what seemed a lifetime ago, but now deeper and stronger, and ouch!)

Snow Goose joined hands with Frankish Oliver. He seemed nervous at first, trying to twist his hand out of her grip, but she held on as the vibration grew stronger and stronger. At last the sound was recognizable as human voices, stripped of euphonics and amplified staggeringly. It was a chant, a ritual chant that was all undertones, a sound like a row of giant gongs ringing beneath three feet of oil.

Snow Goose’s outline was the first to change, followed swiftly by Frankish Oliver’s. They became like fluid metal, running together, peeling apart, and the light expanded until it surrounded the other Gamers as well, bathing them all in a silvery, gloriously fluxing incandescence.

At first Max saw only a blurred glow. It moved, shifted, and he understood: something intangible was pulling itself free from Max. A moment later he could see its shape.

It was himself, in a way. Once, after a debilitating stretch of fever, he had lost enough weight in his face to see the cheekbones that shaped it, and he recognized them now. But that perfect, idyllic shape turned and gave him a nod, smiling as if they shared some great secret. Max couldn’t hear the undertone chanting anymore-it was more like he was a part of it, his body one of the notes. He turned to the other Gamers, and was astonished. From each of them flowed an ectomorphic form, more beautiful than anything they could have aspired to in life. The forms rose above them, hovered there, then joined hands in a circle.

Max stared, trying to absorb what he was seeing. The cave, once the very heart of darkness, glowed with a light which was not of man, or of man’s doing. It was a holy light, a miniature aurora borealis, a light which flowed from within the floating, flaming figures.

The floating “spirit” of Snow Goose rotated slowly in the air, her face a calm oval. “Now,” she said, “we go.”

The spirit forms ranged ahead. Max felt his spear humming with power, and clutched it tightly. It felt warm. The stone bridge they traversed was as narrow, and as frighteningly high over an unfathomable pit, as it had been before; but there was something else. Something new had entered the equation.

It was a sense of possibilities.

The Paija stood waiting for them. It was gigantic, bestially beautiful, profane beyond his imaginings, balancing on that single obscene leg like something spawned in a Tijuana freak show.

Its single leg was more like the trunk of an elephant. Boneless. flexible. It weaved from side to side like some kind of top-heavy cobra, beckoning them onward to death.

For a moment the tableau was complete, and still. Max faded back a little, watching the others, saw Frankish Oliver gripping his war club as if it connected him to the spirit image floating above his head.

The Paija sniffed at the air, her thick, bovine nose wrinkling as if scenting something distasteful.

She gripped her stalagmite club and screamed defiantly and smashed it down on the bridge. The span of rock danced savagely. Dust and rock rained from the invisible ceiling. Kevin fell to his knees and had to be helped up by Bowles. For a moment a twist of genuine fear crossed that freckled face. Then bravado won out, and he was strong and brave once again.

The Paija opened its mouth, her mouth, and grinned. Max had never seen so many broken edges in one place. It looked like a junkyard for dental cutlery. The teeth were set in at odd angles, rows and rows of them, like shark’s teeth.

The Paija attacked.

“Onward!” Snow Goose yelled, and like the fools they were, they charged.

And above them, so moved their ethereal doubles. With every step they took, the floating figures above them seemed to gain power. They shone more brightly. The Paija ceased her raving, examined them suspiciously, seemed to reconsider- Max saw Trianna’s spirit fly at the enormous creature like a fairy on speed, moving with such grace and agility that the breath froze in his throat. Quite simply, she was beautiful. The Paija swung at her with its improvised club, and she backpedaled, doing a kind of breast stroke in the air.

Max snuck a peek at the flesh-and-blood Trianna, who was transfixed, her lips slightly parted, eyes gleaming with excitement.

The Paija couldn’t seem to touch her. Now the other spirit forms flew in, and when they linked together, that aurora effect was magnified. A fluxing electric rainbow blossomed, and touched the Paija.

The creature screeched in pain and indignation that these tiny creatures would dare to harm it. Far from being slowed, it charged, swinging the club. The stalagmite smashed down just short of Snow Goose, who scrambled back and then caught her balance again. “Don’t run! Don’t run! It will feed on your fear!”