Neal Barrett Jr. - The Prophecy Machine

“Get your lady out,” Sabatino shouted, slicing another Foxer to the floor. “I'll get Father and hold them off here!”

“You can't,” Finn said, “there's too many of them, you'll never make it through.”

Sabatino showed him a curious, slightly puzzled frown.

“Damn it, craftsman, the old fart's family. What else can I do?”

Before Finn could answer, Sabatino was gone, jumping into the fracas, leaping amidst the brawl. In an instant, he was swallowed up in Foxers, lost from sight.

“Letitia, look at me,” Finn said, shaking her roughly, gripping her tight. “You've got to stop this, I cannot do everything at once. Come to your senses, dear, or I fear we're both lost.”

Letitia's answer was a foolish stare, a look that chilled him to the bone, for he'd seen the same hollow, empty gaze in Calabus' eyes.

He clutched her wrist and jerked her along, turning back to the stairs. The Foxers were busy with Sabatino, and there might be a chance, a slim one at best, that he could slip by them and get her to safety, come back and help …

The Foxer came out of nowhere, leaping out of shadow into light. Finn met his blade with a shock that numbed all feeling in his arm.

The foe came at him furiously, one wicked blow after another, driving Finn back. He knew he couldn't hold the fellow off, not with one hand, knew he couldn't let Letitia go, knew if he didn't they were both as good as dead.

Fate, then, as Fate is wont to do, solved the problem then and there as the Foxer's companion leaped in to help his friend …

There was no decision now, no choice to make. He let Letitia go, clutched his blade with both hands, swept it in a quick and deadly arc at the fellow coming on his right.

The Foxer looked stunned, grabbed his throat and tumbled to the floor. Finn knew he'd done his best, done what he could, and knew if he took one out, the other would surely bring him down. He stepped back, stumbled, felt the blade strike, felt it bite into his splint.

Finn had seldom known such agony in his life. His weapon was lost, but he didn't greatly care, for Letitia was gone, out of his sight. Through a veil of awful pain, he gazed up at his foe, saw the Foxer grin, saw him raise his sword for the final deadly blow-

— closed his eyes, opened them again to an unearthly howl, saw the Foxer stagger, saw him reel, saw blood begin to spout, saw, in a wonder, a deadly, disembodied head. Saw, an instant after that, a blade thrust through the Foxer's back and out his chest.

The Foxer collapsed. Sabatino drew out his sword, bent down and tore Julia loose from the grisly remains of a nose.

“I believe this is yours,” Sabatino said, holding the lizard well away, tossing it to Finn. “I'd clean it up if I were you. Can you stand? Where'd the pretty go?”

Sabatino looked weary, bloodied, somewhat out of sorts. Finn dropped Julia's head in his pocket, along with her other parts. Julia rattled and complained, snapping at empty air.

“Thanks for your help,” Finn said, “I'm busy right now. I don't know where she is, she's gone. I've got to find her. Sabatino? Can you give me a hand? Your father, did he make it all right?”

“I'm afraid not. Couldn't get to him. Bastards already did him in.”

“What did they-”

“You don't want to know. Father was mean at heart, crazy as a goose. But no one deserves a fate as cruel as that.”

“I'm sorry for your loss. If you could help me to my feet …”

Sabatino shook his head. “If she ran back there, friend, I fear she's a goner as well. We'd never get her out. Best we try and save ourselves. I doubt we can even handle that.”

“I guess you didn't hear. I'm not leaving without Letitia Louise.”

“Ah, you're serious, I presume. Let's get you up, then. Won't do a bit of good, but I suppose we could try.”

Finn gave him a long and thoughtful look. “I feel I should be straight with you. There's no reason you have to go too. You won't win favor with me, don't think you will. I despise you for an arrogant lout, and a liar to boot. Nothing you can do to change that.”

“One thing you forget,” Sabatino said, with a nasty grin. “If you don't happen to make it out, craftsman, I win the lovely prize …”

Merely standing near the dread machine was enough to fry a brave man's soul. Ducking through the clang and the clatter of that terrible maze, fighting the shriek and the throb and the clamor that howled through his head was a hundred-fold worse than Finn had imagined only moments before.

Madness waited there in the hot, churning bowels of the thing, a thing that had likely drained his love, stripped her of her reason, sucked her mind dry.

Hold on, Letitia, wherever you are … I'm coming for you, dear …

One instant Sabatino was beside him, the next he was gone. The Foxers were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they'd sated their fury on the hapless old man, Finn thought. Or maybe they were smart enough not to go near the thing at all.

Once more he squeezed through the vile convolution of fat, distended coils, countless tunnels of soiled and sullied glass, foul viscera that wound their way through the tangle, through the snarl of the device.

And, as ever, through the filth and the splatter, there was something almost heard, something almost seen, a blur of dark motion rushing swiftly about within.

“Letitia!”

“Sabatino!”

A hopeless cry, his voice all but lost in the din.

Finn made his way through shuttering cogs and wheezing gears, through the tremble and the quaver and the roar, the awesome emanations shrieking through his head.

Unsteady on his feet, he nearly stumbled again, caught himself, and-

— there and then it struck, hit him like a great enormous fist, a wall that wasn't there, a wall he couldn't see.

He shook himself, dazed, dazzled, stupefied. The machine was still there, but there was something else as well, something vaguely sketched, like a shimmer, like a veil, like a thousand panes of crystal that shimmered in impossible light.

The sight made him queasy, made him want to retch. The rapid oscillation numbed his sense of balance, his sense of far and near. Finn took a step, and UP swept him over, DOWN jerked him back to his right and to his left, turning him in directions he'd never seen before.

He shouted, flailed about, but no words came out. He was spinning, whirling like a top, but he couldn't move a bit. A face he'd never seen before loomed up at him, grinned and disappeared. Another, and another after that, one face atop the next moving so incredibly fast they seemed to be made of molten wax.

The faces vanished.

Finn vanished as well …

He stood on a flat, endless plain, as great shaggy beasts plodded by under a broiling sun that dropped into the bloody sea as the mighty vessel died, spewing gouts of flame, flame that reflected in the woman's chocolate eyes as the silver craft whined overhead, as the stars swept by in a spidery veil, a veil of deadly smoke that ate the soldier's eyes, eyes that looked out on a flat, endless plain as great shaggy beasts plodded by under a broiling sun, as the mighty vessel vanished, spewing gouts of Sabatino everywhere …

“You're coming apart,” Finn cried out in alarm, “you're just-going everywhere!”

Sabatino was gone, lost in a blink. Finn saw him dash through a bright crystal pane, followed him over a flat, endless-

Finn?

FINN?

PLEASE

Help

ME

FINN …!

“Letitia? Letitia Louise!”

“Who do you think,” Julia said, “how many people do you know in this place?”