Robert Charrette: Find your own truth

Turning at the sound of a foot scraping the rock floor, he saw Jason standing in the archway of a tunnel that led deeper into the rock. Looking annoyed, the Indian turned on his heel and vanished again into the dark. Sam switched on a flashlight and motioned the others to follow.

The tunnel was uneven, narrowing and widening irregularly as it made its serpentine way into the earth. In the places where he had to duck low, Sam almost felt the weight of the rock above him. The walls were smooth and the tunnels almost circular. Branches too small for a man to pass through split off from the walls and ceiling. Sometimes the flashlight's beam showed that they looped back in almost immediately. Most often they were simply Stygian holes impenetrable to the probing light. The effect gave an uncanny organic feel to the place, as though they were walking through the arteries of some strange being of rock.

Sam turned one corner to find Jason only a meter away. The Indian was advancing cautiously, gun in hand. Sam's flashlight beam faltered in the darkness ahead of Jason. Its range of illumination seemed oddly curtailed, as though it were shining into infinity.

Suddenly Jason stopped moving, and screamed as his body arched in spasm. Lines of sparks danced along his body, tracing the wires and cables of his cyberware. His Ares Predator roared as his trigger finger tightened on the trigger. The thunder it raised in the cavern gobbled all other sound. The Indian twisted, almost as though trying to tear loose from the grip of a giant hand, and then was flung down at Sam's feet. There was the slightest hint of burnt meat in the smoke rising from the samurai.

"Righty, mate," Harrier said as he propped his head around the corner. "That's the barrier."

"Don't worry 'bout the Injun, Mr. Twist. Barrier don't like electronics. He'll be fine in a minute."

Jason groaned, then cursed with a vigor that indicated he had taken no real injury.

"See," Harrier said eagerly, "Mudder said you was the bloke who'd get us past the barrier, Mr. Twist."

Sam handed the flashlight to Gray Otter. She took it with her right hand; her left held her Browning Ultra-Power pistol. Cautiously he walked forward. Approaching the spot where Jason had stood, Sam's head started to buzz from the strength of the magic before him. He stopped, staring into the darkness.

The space before him seemed translucent, as though the air itself were solid. A fugitive gleam dwelt within the darkness, scattering light across the spectrum. It had to be the opal McAlister had said would be here. The guide hadn't been a magician, but he had been savvy enough to realize that an opal so well protected would have magical potential beyond any ordinary open.

Sam could feel the barrier's energy almost physically, but he knew it could only be countered with magic. Seating himself before it, he shifted to astral perception. He had expected the barrier to glow with power; instead it was dark like the entrance. Unlike the entrance it sucked at him, drawing at his energy.

Sam thought about calling the spirit of the place to question it about the barrier, but a raggedness on the periphery of his astral vision reminded him of the chaos of the Outback. Would the spirit come? And if it did, would it be warped like the land of which it

was a part? It might prove more dangerous than the barrier.

Deciding to tackle the barrier directly, Sam began a power chant to center himself and gather his strength. The rustlings of his companions receded from his awareness, but he felt every irregularity of the surface on which he sat. The soft movement of air through the cavern whispered to him in distracting, almost-understood entreaties. He blocked out the distraction.

Armored in his power, he changed his song, reaching out with a shining astral hand to touch the barrier. Motes of light leapt from his fingers to squirm and merge into fragile threads that traced a lattice of energy and revealed the structure of the barrier. The air in the cavern rose to a breeze, then to a wind. It howled forlornly, like a dog bereft of its master. Sam ignored it and concentrated on the pattern.

When he was sure that he understood the barrier's structure, he tugged experimentally on one of the strands. It gave to his touch and the lattice shifted slightly into a minutely different arrangement. Sam felt satisfaction. He tugged another strand, harder this time, and the lattice shifted as he willed. He set to work opening the way for the four of them.

Some time later, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Raising his head, he looked up into the brown eyes of Gray Otter. Her expression was worried, and he smiled to reassure her.

"The gate is open."

She looked disbelieving, and turned her head to stare at the darkness. He followed her gaze. The passage didn't look any different. The darkness still ate the flashlight's beam. But Sam knew better.

He got shakily to his feet. He was tired; dealing with the barrier had taken a lot out of him, but he had done what was needed. Assured that there would be no hindrance, he walked forward. For a few meters the air seemed thick around him, dragging slightly at his movements, but then he was through into fresher air that smelled of evergreen.

Beyond the barrier the cavern opened into a large chamber, whose floor sloped down to a central pool that stretched from wall to wall and separated them from the far wall. Everything was underlit by a luminescence that seemed to emanate from the milky water, making darker still the pockmarks of water-worn cavities in the walls. A natural bridge of stone 8 stretched over the still waters. On the far side, three seams of opal cut diagonally through the sandstone wall. The opal gleamed with a thousand colors, bright II beyond what might be expected from light reflected from the pool.

Sam felt his facial muscles tug into a smile. McAlister had been right: Behind the barrier was a lode of opal. This was what he had come for. Those stones 5 held the power he needed.

Jason was the first to follow him through the barrier. The Indian came through ready for trouble, but drew up short at the beauty of the cavern. Gray Otter nearly bumped into him when she came through. Then both were crowded forward when Harrier followed. The Australian whistled low and long as his gaze settled on the seams of opal.

Sam started down the path toward the pool. When he reached the relatively flat area at the edge of the water, Jason cut past him. A few strides more and the Indian skipped a step and spun in the air. He continued walking backward as he mounted the bridge. At the top of the arch he actually smiled pleasantly and taunted Sam.

"Always putting me down about wanting money, Anglo. Like it's some kind of disease. Then you haul off after a chairman's ransom without spilling a word about what you're after. Afraid of too much competition? Or embarrassed to have people know you're just like them? The Ghost will love hearing about this."

Behind Jason, a creature out of nightmare rose silently from the depths of the pool. A broad crocodile head topped the three-meter neck, but no crocodile had ever had such large golden eyes, nor such long, lanky limbs, nor furred paws armed with needle claws. The creature rose until its shoulders were level with the bridge. Its lean, armored body was ropy with muscle. If it had hind limbs, they did not come into sight.

Perhaps Jason saw the horrific shape reflected in Sam's eyes, or perhaps he felt the terror the thing radiated. Whatever the case he spun about, raising his Predator, but his enhanced reflexes were not fast enough. The creature lashed out with a black-taloned paw. Claws shredded through Jason's flak jacket to scrape shrieking across the carbon-fiber plates embedded in his skin. The implanted armor was all that saved the Indian from being gutted by the monster's attack. The impact of the blow twisted him back around to face Sam. As Jason staggered backward, his left foot came down in empty air. In a desperate bid to regain his balance he threw his body forward, just as the beast hissed and snapped its snakelike neck forward. Gaping jaws thrust at the Indian. The creature missed biting him but its snout bumped Jason, toppling him over the edge of the bridge.