Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

Behind them the entire ice field was breaking up. Huge slabs rose and sank, clashed amidst a monstrous spray. In the distance, the Wolfalcons screamed their frustration.

And then…

The sun began to change. It was warmer still, and the air shimmered around them, rather like a heat mirage. Nothing extreme, but a sensation of chill ran the course of his body, and he knew Seelumkadchluk! Reality lay just ahead.

The earth rumbled, and then subsided.

There, ahead of them, was the village where they had crash-landed an eternity ago. The burned and blasted wreckage of their plane was a reminder of happier times, like the stripped carcass of last week’s Thanksgiving turkey.

A dozen Eskimos, scattered around the edge of the bay, pointed and cried out as the Adventurers ran across the last of the sea-ice. The steadily thinning sheet dissolved beneath their very feet. One by one they plunged into the sea. Eviane’s legs burned with fatigue; she hopped from perch to perch, and finally ran out of ice.

Chunks of ice bobbed and clashed about her head as she stroked for shore. Eviane noted how little the freezing water affected her. Her toughness might save her yet.

Snow Goose scrambled ashore to be met by Martin, her father. “My child!” He embraced her warmly. “You have saved us!”

“Daddy, we’ve still got trouble. The Cabal are coming.”

“The Cabal cannot use their beasts or spirit forms in this world, but they can attack as before, with guns. Hurry!” He pulled her toward the trading post. Other Adventurers followed, while Eviane struggled up the strand.

Seven Adventurers remained. Orson and Max, Eviane, Snow Goose, Charlene, Trianna, and Hippogryph. They all looked like something the proverbial cat should have buried in the sand.

Eskimos scrambled to get boxes from the trading post. “Weapons!” Martin the Arctic Fox bellowed. “Sometimes the need is for spiritual weapons, and sometimes for a Smith and Wesson.”

Eviane recoiled as an Eskimo handed her one of the rifles. It felt heavy in her hand, and alien, and…

A single gunshot set the tired Adventurers to diving behind buildings. Eviane found herself below ground level in a web of splintered wood. Something sailed through the air “Grenade!” Orson screamed. All heads ducked as one of the sheds disintegrated in fire and sound. A ragged Eskimo form flew boneless through the air.

There was firing all around her. Eviane huddled, covering her face.

Charlene dropped behind the barrier with her. “Eviane! Why aren’t you fighting?” She looked concerned. Eviane had no answer.

She heard the roar behind them. It was not an explosion; it was the roar of a great beast, and Eviane knew what she would see even as she turned. She sucked air, hyperventilating, as she did whenever the nightmare returned.

The thing that rose from the ocean was a form of madness and nightmare, larger than anything that they had seen yet. It was a many-segmented worm-shape, with a yawning maw.

Martin walked on stiff legs, unconcerned by the gunfire and the explosions that had turned the village into a battlefield. He stared up at the creature, and screamed, “Blasphemy! How much power did you steal, to manifest in this world! You go too far, Ahk-lut! I, your father, renounce you! I, your father-”

A sound that could only have been a human laugh emerged from the titanic shape, and the entire world shook with its evil mirth.

Martin’s magical gestures were evidently inadequate. The monster humped forward. The shelf of ice supporting Martin shattered, filling the air with frigid mist and chips of broken ice. Martin disappeared into the ocean.

Ahk-lut’s terrible spirit form dove after him.

“What was that?” Max gasped.

“A Terichik,” Snow Goose said, eyes wide. “I’d only heard about them. Never seen one. It’s Ahk-lut, my brother. He’s going to kill us all.”

Like a raging mountain, the Terichik rose screaming from a frozen, nightdark sea. Its many-sectioned, grotesquely wormlike body reared up; tons of water and ice thundered into the ocean with a howl like the death of worlds. The night sky swirled wind-whipped snow through mist that tasted of salt. The Terichik’s mouth gaped cavernously. Endless rows of serrated teeth gleamed as it shrieked its mindless wrath. Its breath was a cold and fetid wind.

The humans beneath it were warrior and wizard, princess and commoner. They were frail meat in the Terichik’s path, brittle fleshly twigs tumbled in an angry storm. They scrambled for safety, away from the sea. They fled past the wreckage of the shattered Inuit village: rows of crushed houses, a great stone lodge with its roof stove in, boat hulls splintered and scattered like insect husks.

Max gaped up at the creature, then looked down at the sacred usik in his hand. Magic against magic. Why not?

Eviane screamed as she saw Max face the Terichik, remembering another figure who had lost his life while wielding a magical usik.

Max died well. He was the greatest warrior among them, but foolish to think that his enchanted usik, the pubic bone of the sacred walrus, could stand against the Terichik. Even faced by a beast to dwarf ten killer whales, Max roared defiance and sprang forward.

His magic, his courage, his strength were not enough. The Terichik crushed him, savaged his body with fanged cilia. His screams echoed in their heads long after his body had vanished into its gaping maw.

“No!” Eviane screamed, and ran out. Into the open.

Behind her, Hippogryph yelled, “No!”

She heard. She turned, breathing hard, too hard, hyperventilating.

She took a Cabal bullet through the heart. The electric jolt that meant The End warned her. She saw the red stain spreading over her entire body, and she realized- I’m not dead! Then…

It’s a Game!

And…

A series of images flooded through her mind, colliding and crashing. She screamed it. “I’m Michelle! I’m Michelle.”

She turned and began firing at the Cabalists.

One of them flopped back, out of her sight, but directly into Hippogryph’s.

That was no red stain on the man’s face! The head had been blown half away, the brain pan leaking onto the snow. Hippogryph jumped back screaming. “No! Oh, no.”

And turned around, and saw Michelle staring at him, the gun in her hand, her head cocked slightly to the side.

She stalked toward him.

“You,” she said.

He was confused. It was all happening so fast. “Wait a minute. Now. listen to me-”

Michelle’s rifle came up to the aim. “Damn you. You’re the one who put that rifle in my hand. I never forget a voice. I’m rotten on faces. But if I hadn’t been so damned confused, I would have known two days ago. I would have known!”

The other Gamers turned to watch.

“Listen.” Hippogryph was licking his lips nervously, staring at the bore of that rifle. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that-”

She fired once, twice, three times. She howled, “Liar!”

Marty felt impacts; he felt his parka twitch. He looked down and saw dimpled cavities ripped through the parka. He could hear the click click click as Michelle Sturgeon tried to shoot him again.

Blood filled the holes in his parka and dribbled down. Marty dropped his rifle. Unbelieving and unwilling, he ripped the Velcro apart, pulled open the quilted cloth over his chest and belly, and saw red coils of intestine beginning to bulge through torn flaps of skin.

Hippogryph screamed. He pulled his jacket closed, convulsively, and ran stumbling into the white mist. They heard his screams diminish, then chop off sharply.

Another explosion. Eviane cursed and covered her ringing ears with her hands, then dropped them; she’d need her hands for fighting.