Maggie Furey - Aurian

A shrill, thin screeching, like metal grating against metal, sent Anvar spinning in the direction from which the unnerving sound had come. Framed in the opposite archway was a creature that turned his blood to ice. Its bloated, spherical body was wider than a man is tall, and it moved on a weird conglomeration of jointed, angular legs—too many for Anvar to count in that frozen moment of confrontation. And not all of its limbs were used for walking. Others sprouted like hideous growths from its dully gleaming body, some ending in cruel pincers, others in deadly keen blades like curved knives, still others in clumps of fingerlike manipulators that clenched and unclenched vn ceaseless motion, grasping at the air. There was no head. Clusters of brilliant lights, like eyes, were dotted at intervals around its swollen body, mounted on the ends of writhing limbs. With nightmare slowness, these twisted in the air, turning their blinding beams unerringly in the direction of Anvar and his friends.

“Dear Gods preserve us!” Anvar, in unthinking terror, began to back slowly away toward the sheltering archway.

Beside him, Shia gave a bloodcurdling snarl. “Scatter!” she snapped, as the hideous creature suddenly came scuttling toward them—straight across the thin air of the chasm!

The great cat leapt to one side and Anvar dived for the shelter of the archway. The creature paused on the stony apron, its myriad limbs clicking and rattling, its eyes swiveling, turning their beams this way and that—to fix upon Bohan, who stood, utterly paralyzed with fear, on the very brink of the precipice. Once again, Anvar heard the tortured, metallic shrieking as the angular legs stirred, and began to advance, step by step, toward the eunuch.

“Get him!” Shia’s thought seared into Anvar’s mind as she launched herself at the monstrosity, fastening her jaws around one of the slender legs. The creature’s eyes swiveled toward her and several sets of limbs, their pincers clacking together, their blades whistling through the air, snapped around—to meet on thin air as Shia darted ottt of reach.

In its moment of distraction, Anvar dashed across to Bohan and yanked him back from the edge. “Spread out,” he yelled. “Surround it! Keep it confused!”

Bohan, his paralysis vanished with the hope of a plan, drew his sword and moved to one side, waving the bright blade to distract the creature. As it lumbered toward him, Shia darted in again from behind, fastening her teeth on one of the legs. The limb flipped upward, hurling her against the side of the arch. Anvar had snatched up Aurian’s sword and ran in to chop at one of the swiveling eye stalks. There was a shower of sparks and a jarring backshock ran numbingly up his arm, as metal shrieked against metal. Anvar gasped, more from surprise than pain. This was no natural beast—it was a crafted thing!

The break in his attention almost cost him his life. Anvar looked up in time to see one of the arced blades descending, aimed straight at his head—but Bohan moved quickly in from the other side, fastened his huge hands round one of the legs, and yanked, his face crimson and contorted with exertion. Despite Bohan’s phenomenal strength, the creature did not budge, but the move was enough to deflect its blow at Anvar, who ducked back as the sharp edge whistled harmlessly past his face. Shia bought the eunuch time to escape by diving right beneath the curving belly of the monstrosity, swiping at the metal legs in a whirlwind of claws. It whirred and clicked, spinning violently round on the spot, but its killing limbs could not reach beneath its body. Anvar watched, horrified, as the cat deliberately began to inch toward the edge of the precipice, the creature, reacting with mindless fury, moving with her as it tried in vain to reach its tormentor. It reached the brink—toppled— and suddenly was gone. Shia with it.

“Shia!” Heartsick, Anvar raced for the edge—and saw two sets of claws, digging for dear life into the crumbling stone at the brink.

“Help . . .”

He heard Shia’s wailing cry, at the extreme of anguish— then Bohan was there, grasping frantically at the black paws, heedless of the yawning drop beneath. But even the eunuch’s strength was not equal to the weight of the cat’s massive body. Slowly, he began to slip forward, his feet sliding on the stone. Anvar flung himself down at the edge of the chasm and reached down to Shia. With a bone-cracking effort she dug the claws of her hind feet into the stone, raising herself just enough for him to grasp two handfuls of loose skin at the base of her neck. The struggle seemed to take hours. Anvar pulled until he thought his arms would snap, sick with fear that he might slide forward to his own death. But with the two men supporting her weight, Shia was able to haul herself upward, inch by painful inch— until at last, with a heave and a great sliding rush she was up, safely back on the ledge.

Anvar rolled away from the brink and lay panting. His arms, freed of their burden, were aching, their muscles locked. “What a stupid thing to do!” he raged at Shia. He felt the cat’s mental equivalent of a shrug.

“It worked, didn’t it?” But for all her bravado, she sounded shaken.

Anvar had to smile. “It did indeed—and it saved all our lives.”

“As you humans saved mine. My thanks to you both.”

“It’s Bohan you should really be thanking.” Anvar clapped the eunuch on the shoulder, and the huge man grinned.

“It took all three of us to defeat the creature.” Shia paused, growling softly. “If Aurian met it alone ...”

“Oh Gods . . .” Anvar shuddered, thinking of her facing the fearsome metallic beast, naked and unarmed as she had been. He thrust the thought away, and got to his feet. “I’m not giving up. We have to go on.”

“I agree—but how?” Shia looked across the yawning gulf of the cavern, her tail twitching unhappily.

“That thing managed . . .” Anvar forced himself back to the edge, trying to work out how the beast had achieved the crossing. “There must be some way that we can’t see. Shia, come over here. See if you can sense any magic at work.”

“There is!” The cat backed away from the brink of the chasm, her fur bristling.

Anvar knelt beside her, feeling along the edge. Though his eyes told him nothing was there, his searching fingers encountered smooth stone that continued, as far as he could reach, out across the chasm. “There was a bridge here all the time. An invisible bridge. We can cross!”

Bohan had gathered-ap their discarded bundle. Now he hesitated on the lip of the precipice, frowning. Looking ques-tioningly at Anvar, he gestured across the chasm and made vague passes in the air with his hand.

Anvar understood all too well. His own stomach was churning at the thought of crossing that dizzying drop with nothing, seemingly, beneath him but thin air. “No, my friend,” he said ruefully, “unfortunately I don’t know how to make it visible. We’re just going to have to be very careful.”

Bohan shuddered.

Anvar went first, crawling out onto the invisible stone on his hands and knees. It took more courage than he had known he possessed to make that first move out into nothingness. He fought down the clutching panic that threatened to unman him with thoughts of Aurian and forced himself to inch forward, feeling for the limits of the span with hands that shook violently. He tried to call back to the others, but only a strangled squeak emerged. Anvar cleared his throat and tried again. “Be careful, it’s very narrow and there’s no rail. Move slowly—the surface is very smooth. We daren’t rush this.”

Time stretched out into an endless nightmare. Anvar tried at first to keep his eyes on the opposite wall of the chasm, but it didn’t help. It seemed to grow no nearer, and he found himself wondering if there was some evil magic in the bridge that kept his goal receding, trapping him endlessly suspended over the abyss until his strength gave out and he plummeted to his death. Anvar closed his eyes—and immediately felt better. He realized that he had no need of vision—the bridge was invisible anyway—and he could progress much more easily if he shut out the sight of the sickening drop beneath him. He crawled on with painful slowness, feeling blindly for the edges of the span on either side with sweating hands, the thunder of his heart loud in his ears.