R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

“No time, man!” Brady cried to Del. “Get back.”

Del scrambled to secure the hatch, then dove down, trying to slip under the belts with Thompson, just as the Unicorn started moving again.

Mitchell looked to Reinheiser. “Currents?”

“Magnetic force,” the physicist answered. “Drawing us to the center of the field interaction.” Suspecting what was about to happen, he warned, “Hold on.”

Just as Reinheiser finished the statement, it grabbed the sub. Like a great untamed beast, the newborn storm sprang upon the Unicorn , seeking an outlet for its uncontrollable power. It raged about in torment, aimless at first, but then suddenly finding a direction. Its power became purposeful anger, guided as if by vengeance toward the black portal, as if it were a sentient thing, blaming that area for its agony. The storm raced in, pulling the helpless sub along, and tore through the barrier.

The men’s knuckles whitened under a grip of terror. Up and up they went, spinning and swirling. Up to a world that had once been their home.

But not anymore.

THE MINUTES PASSED slowly as the Unicorn spun and bounced through the five-mile trip to the surface. Up and up she went, and then, as suddenly as it had started, the violent thrashing stopped.

The Unicorn righted herself and sat calm, but the seven men did not release their grips on the belts. “We’ve stopped going up,” Del dared to whisper at length.

“The surface,” Corbin added. “And we must have broken clear of the storm.” Wide smiles curled upon every lip.

But even as the seven men began freeing themselves from the straps, the lights went out. And in the blackness an ominous sound became evident, a sound that every seagoing man hears in his worst nightmares. Somewhere toward the back of the Unicorn the ocean had again found its way in.

“We’re taking on water!” Billy cried. As if to confirm his statement, the Unicorn tilted to starboard.

“She’s going to roll!” Mitchell shouted. “Get out!”

Cool-headed Ray Corbin proved the hero this time. At the first sign of danger, when the lights went out, he had wisely groped his way to the base of the conning tower. “I’m at the ladder,” he said calmly. “Follow my voice.”

Mitchell found him first, and with the captain in position to guide the others, Corbin stated loudly enough for all to hear, “I’m going out with the raft.”

Little light entered when the first officer opened the outer hatch; the sky above was starless and pitch-black. Undaunted, he threw out the raft, designed to hold twenty men, and blindly scrambled onto it as it inflated.

Reinheiser was next up the ladder, then Doc Brady.

“Hurry up!” Mitchell urged as the sub listed farther to starboard.

But Del had a problem: Thompson was frozen in terror, refusing to move despite Del’s pleas. As time seeped away, anger replaced diplomacy, and Del finally grabbed Thompson’s shirt and hauled the man up the incline.

“Help me!” he yelled to Mitchell. The captain latched on to the terrified seaman’s shirt and heaved him up the ladder, where Billy Shank was waiting.

But just as they got Thompson safely onto the raft, the Unicorn listed again. Mitchell was braced by the ladder, but Del lost his footing and skidded away into the darkness.

“DelGiudice!” Mitchell cried.

“I’m okay,” Del replied, rubbing a new bruise on his shoulder. Unmercifully, the Unicorn assumed an even steeper angle. “I’ll make it,” he assured Mitchell. “Go ahead up.”

Mitchell shook his head, not so certain that Del could get back to the ladder. But the captain had no way to help, no ropes, or even wires, close at hand that he might throw to the distant man. He moved out of the sub.

Del heard his companions calling as he groped around on all fours. Even for those moments that he managed the steep incline, he could not find the ladder. Then the sub rolled some more, practically on its side, and the ocean streamed in through the open hatch, hungry to claim its prize.

“She’s on her side!” came Billy’s distant cry as the raft drifted away. “She’s going over! Del!”

Del slumped back against the now vertical floor, resigned to his fate. He didn’t even notice that the water pouring in was strangely warm.

Suddenly he felt himself rising, and not with the water; it wasn’t deep enough to buoy him. His eyes darted around. What sort of delirium gripped him? He was floating in the air! And then, miraculously, he was at the ladder!

“How?” Del asked aloud, but he didn’t wait for any answers. He fought his way out the hatch, plunged into the warm ocean and swam toward the dim outline of the raft and her six passengers.

They hauled Del aboard silently and gathered at the edge of the huge raft.

All was quiet save the rustle of wet clothes and the occasional groan of a soft-soled shoe on the rubber raft. Behind them, far off now and racing away, the wild storm raged, but the men took no notice. They stood solemn, peering into the blackness, waiting for a part of their lives to come to an end. And then, with a mere gurgle, the vast, unconquerable ocean took the Unicorn.

“Well, she’s gone,” Corbin said, staring vacantly into the black void.

What more could they say?

They settled in for the night along the perimeter of the raft and lay quietly, remembering and wondering in blackness as the empty hours passed. The crisis and great loss of the past few days forced Del into a contemplation of his own mortality. Despite all his efforts, death remained unanswerable and irreversible, a frustrating and terrifying concept because he simply could not know.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Jeff DelGiudice experienced the emptiness of his rational inability to accept faith.

A few hours later, without warning, dawn exploded over the eastern horizon, shattering the black calm of night and whatever tranquility the men might have had. Startled from their dreams and thoughts, they faced the surprising, stunning light.

Even though its lip had just broken the horizon, the raging sun burned at their eyes, and as it climbed into full view, the sky turned a bright red and the temperature soared. Waves of heat ripped through the air above them. The ocean flashed bloodred as choppy swells caught the sky’s fire in brilliant reflections, appearing as sheets of flame flicking against the sides of the raft.

“What the hell is going on?” Mitchell cried as he reflexively dodged the splash of red water. The very sky above them seemed battered and torn.

“They must have done it,” Corbin realized, scrambling unsteadily to his feet. “They finally did it!”

“War?” Mitchell gasped. He turned to Reinheiser, who was staring blankly at the merciless sun. “Nuclear war?”

Reinheiser shrugged his shoulders listlessly. “There could be other explanations,” he said unconvincingly, overwhelmed by the apparent betrayal of his cherished science. What had the idiots done-or failed to do-with the marvelous tools and inventions?

“Whatever happened, we’ve got to get some protection from this sun before it burns our skin away,” Doc Brady said.

“Get the cover out,” Mitchell said absently, his voice subdued. This horror transcended anger, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake.

“We are gathered together on a most solemn occasion,” Ray Corbin proclaimed, still standing. The men watched him with unchanging expressions as he deliberately reached down and picked up one of Mitchell’s rifles. “We stand alone as witnesses to the ultimate stupidity of mankind. We have come to bury the dead.” He raised the rifle above his head in uplifted palms, then tossed his offering into the red water.