Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

Moore bit his lip and subsided. Tomorrow he would perhaps laugh about this night of madness and sorcery. Tonight he had little choice but to accept matters as they presented.

Chance seated himself beside the ebony table, hunched his big shoulders forward over the sphere. Concentration creased his brow and accented the tiny surgical scars that lined his face. He had only minor ability at crystal-gazing himself — only his latent psychic talents trained and molded during his studies, augmented by what Kirsten had taught him. But Kirsten was projecting most of the power here — reaching out to the focus of her crystal globe — and Chance need be little more than the equivalent of a trained technician who adjusts his radio apparatus to receive a distant transmission.

The green sphere waxed to an intense glow, making Moore think of Kirsten’s green eyes as he had so often seen them reflected over her crystal. In a near-trance, Chance stared into its swirling depths.

Images took shape in the globe. Moore watched them appear and understood with a chill that this was indeed sorcery from another age.

The images were confused — dreamlike as they flashed from nebulous blur to sudden clarity, then dissolved again. There were mountains, dark trees, a sense of danger and flight. Kirsten’s face flashed into focus time and again, and Moore could read the terror there. Then a view of a mountain cove, and a two-storey log cabin with barn and outbuildings. The cabin was halfhidden back against the ridge near the head of the cove, and in the level extent where the tiny valley fanned out, he could see vegetable gardens and a grassy stretch of pasture.

New figures appeared. On the cabin porch, peering anxiously into the darkened cove — a blocky man in overalls with a rifle, beside him a black hound that snarled at the darkness. Kirsten stood with them, disheveled but unharmed, her attitude one of fear.

Quickly another image. A tall figure in black, his features hidden behind a sculptured metal mask. Then a sudden swirl of light and a vision of horror. A bloated lizard-shape swam in the crystal — its huge form bathed in flame, its obscene head searching about in hellish hunger. Flame oozed from its gaping maw…

Then the scene dissolved, and the globe became once again a sphere of translucent crystal, though it glowed still with pale emerald fire.

Chance swore and drew his hand over his strained features. He looked like a man awakening from a deep dream.

“What does it mean?” Moore demanded, shaking his shoulder. “What was that… that lizard-thing!”

“A salamander,” Chance told him grimly. “A fire-elemental. I’d suspected this from something I found at the crash site, and from the condition of those bodies — they’d been touched by elemental fire. Somehow Dread has gained control of the creature. He’ll send it for Kirsten once he knows how to find her — and she can’t remain hidden from Dread! We’ve got to get to her — and soon! Lord — it’s an hour of midnight!”

Moore groaned and knotted his fists. “But how!” he shouted. “Do you know where that cabin is where she’s hiding? Damn it, John! It’s over a hundred miles from Knoxville to those mountains! Not even your Duesenberg can travel those mountain roads in less than several hours — assuming we could even find the place!”

“We’ll find it,” Chance assured him, touching the glowing sphere. “Kirsten’s crystal will guide us there.”

“But to get there in time…”

“We’ll have to fly.” Chance’s voice was deadly calm. “I have a plane at the airfield only a few miles from here.”

Moore choked. “John — you’re mad! Land in the mountains at night!”

“We saw a pasture there — and I have parachute flares. A light plane like my Stinson Reliant might make it — if the pilot was good enough. I’ve seen you land your Camel under worse conditions.”

Moore remembered dead engines and shell-torn patches of field. “That was fifteen years ago, and I was damn lucky to walk away from some of those.”

“I’ll have to give full concentration to the crystal,” Chance argued. “You’ll have to fly us there. Just get us down in time. We’ll worry about taking off again once we’re there.”

“It’s suicide!”

“It’s death for Kirsten otherwise! She can’t defend herself from Dread’s salamander. I’m not even certain I can. But we’ve got to try!”

Moore reflected that he had planned to throw away his life a few hours earlier. Why scruple over crashing into the side of a mountain now? “All right,” he shrugged. “I’m with you.”

The lights of Knoxville dropped quickly away below them, and in minutes they were flying over darkened countryside where only an occasional light yet shone. Overhead it was cloudless and clear beneath the full moon — perfect for night flying, and Chance’s new Stinson Reliant responded agilely to the controls.

She was a sweet craft to fly, Moore concluded. He had flown a Reliant a few times before — courtesy of a wealthy acquaintance who got a thrill over having a famous ace for his pilot — so he was familiar with the controls. It felt good to fly again, and Moore let the powerful Lycoming radial full out. The highwing monoplane droned rapidly toward the black mountains ahead.

In the seat beside him in the four-passenger cabin, John Chance cradled the glowing crystal. Its soft luminance seemed to grow brighter as the miles fled past below them.

“We should make it there by midnight,” Chance judged, glancing at his watch. The mountains were coming up fast, and the Reliant climbed to meet them.

“If we can find wherever it is we’re going,” Moore commented, watching the moonlit countryside for landmarks. “That’s Newport coming up on the horizon now. This time of night we’ll be lucky to catch the lights in any of these mountain towns until we get to Asheville.”

“We’ll pick up the French Broad River after Newport,” Chance assured him. “With this moon it should show up quite clearly. The French Broad flows past Dillon, and if we fly along the river, we’ll pass straight overhead, lights or no. Kirsten can’t have gotten too far away from that general area, so we just need to circle and watch the crystal.”

Moore grunted. “And when we get there?”

“If you can land us in one piece, we’ll pick up Kirsten and take off again. Dread has so far shown no desire to attack us on my own ground. We’ll be safe for the moment if we can get back to my house.”

“What about the salamander? Can you do anything against a creature like that?”

Chance shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t know. A fire-elemental has enormous power. It’s an awesome accomplishment that Dread can even control one.”

He touched the inside pocket of his tweed jacket to make certain of the folded envelope with the object he had discovered that afternoon at the site of the wreck. If his reasoning was correct, it held the secret to Dread’s control of the elemental. Chance prayed he wouldn’t be forced to put his deductions to the test. “Assuming one is an adept,” Chance went on, “it isn’t too major a conjuration to evoke a salamander. But the distinction between holding a salamander for a few moments safely imprisoned in a pentagram, as opposed to actually releasing the creature to send it forth against those you wish to destroy — it’s like the difference between just looking at a picture of a tiger in a magazine, and hauling one out of its den by the scruff of its neck to take home to chase mice in your kitchen. You can’t just conjure forth something this powerful and turn it loose — the more so because any such creature bears malice toward the practitioner who has evoked it from its plane. Dread has discovered some means to control the salamander. I’m gambling that I understand his secret, and that I can reverse his sending.”