The Cosmic Puppets (14 page)

“Barton!” the golem shrilled.

He opened his eyes. The golem was busily slashing the spider webs with its needle. It speared a couple of spiders, drove the others off, then hopped back to his shoulder, close to his ear.

“Damn you,” it piped. “I told you not to talk to anybody. This was the wrong time. Too much opposition.”

Barton blinked foolishly. His mouth opened and shut. “Who

?”

“Be still. There's only a few seconds. Your reconstruction was premature. You could have ruined everything.” The golem turned to stab a gray rat trying to reach the artery behind Barton's ear. The corpse slid slowly away, still warm and pulsing, feet twitching. “Now get up on your feet!”

Barton struggled. “But I don't—”

“Hurry! With Ahriman free there's no condition to be kept. It's no holds barred, from here on. He agreed to subject Himself to the Change, but that's over with.”

Incredulous, Barton identified the voice. It was shrill, high-pitched, but familiar. “Mary!” He was dumbfounded. “But how the hell—”

The tip of her needle-sword pricked his cheek. “Barton, you can do what has to be done. Your work is ahead.”

“Ahead?”

“He's trying to get away in his station wagon. He doesn't want his real self back. But he must come back! It's the only way. He's the only one with power enough.”

“No,” Barton said quietly. “Not Meade. Not him!”

The golem's sword lifted to his eye and paused there. “My father must be released. You have the ability.”

“Not Doctor Meade,” Barton repeated. “I can't

” He shook his head numbly. “Meade. With his cigars and toothpick and pin-striped suit. That's where He's been!”

“It's up to you. You've seen his real shape.” Her final words cut deep into Barton. “This is why I brought you here. Not for civic reconstruction!”

A snake slithered over Barton's foot. The golem hopped off his shoulder and started after it. Barton struggled up. The webs holding him had been cut. A whole flock of bees appeared. Day was coming. More and more bees appeared. That would take care of the golems and the rats.

In a blind daze, Barton slid and stumbled down the steep slope to the road. He peered stupidly around. Doctor Meade had managed to get his station wagon going; a mass of rats and spiders and golems and snakes covered it in a squirming curtain. Meade was feeling his way inch by inch along the road. He made the first turn, hesitated with one wheel over the lip of the edge, then righted the car and continued.

Behind him, above him, the sluggish mass that was Ahriman continued to grow. Its feelers snaked their way in a widening circle, groping, clutching, carrying things to the jelly mass. The stench was overpowering; Barton retched and retreated. It was already up to staggering proportions.

He reached the road. The car was gaining speed. It careened wildly, missed a turn, and crashed into a guide-fence. Rats and golems flew in all directions. The car shuddered, then came creakily on.

Barton hoisted a boulder. There was no other way. He'd never get through the layer of crawling gray—and the car would be past him in seconds. As it shot directly toward him he crouched, got his weight under, and hurled the big rock with all his strength.

The boulder did its job. It struck the hood of the car, bounced and skidded, and smashed through the windshield, on the left side. Glass flew everywhere. The car veered crazily—and came to a grinding, crashing halt against the base of the slope. Water and gasoline gushed from the cracked engine. Rats and spiders poured eagerly through the jagged hole in the windshield, glad of the opportunity to enter.

Meade scrambled out. Barton hardly recognized him. His face was a broken mask of terror. He ran wildly away from the station wagon, insane with fear, straight down the center of the road. His clothing was torn, skin ribboned and slashed by countless yellowed teeth. He didn't see Barton until he crashed head-on into him.

“Meade,” Barton snarled. He grabbed the staggering man by his collar and hung onto him. “Look at me.”

Meade's vacant eyes glittered up at him, as Barton dragged him to a stop. He panted like a mute animal. No sight. No reason. He was out of his head with terror. Barton couldn't exactly blame him. An ocean of gray shapes was pouring down the road, eager for the kill. And above everything else, the vengeful shadow of Ahriman grew larger and larger.

“Barton,” Meade croaked. “For God's sake let go of me!” He struggled to get away. “They'll kill us. We—”

“Listen.” Barton's eyes were fixed on Meade's quivering face, only inches away. “I know who you are. I know who you really are.”

The effect was instantaneous. Meade's body jerked. His mouth flew open. “Who I—am!”

Barton concentrated with all his strength. He held tight to Meade's collar and summoned each detail of the great figure, as he had first seen it, from the ledge, that morning. The majestic giant, cosmic in his silence, arms outstretched, head lost in the blazing orb of the full sun.

“Yes,” Doctor Meade said suddenly, in a strangely quiet voice.

“Meade,” Barton gasped. “You understand? You know who you are? Do you realize—”

Meade pulled violently away. He turned awkwardly and stumbled off, down the road, hunched over like an animal. Then he stiffened. His arms flailed out, his body jerked, danced like a puppet on a wire. His face quivered. It seemed to melt and fall inward, a shapeless pool of wax.

Barton hurried after him. Meade collapsed. He rolled in agony, then leaped up. Convulsions swept over him, frenzied vibrations that snapped his limbs out, head back, reeling and falling blindly.

“Meade!” Barton shouted. He grabbed hold of the man's shoulder. The coat was smoldering; acrid fumes stung his nose, and the coat ripped away. Barton spun him around and grabbed him by the collar.

It wasn't Meade.

It wasn't anybody he'd ever seen. Or anything he'd ever seen. It wasn't a human being. Doctor Meade's face was gone. What had hardened and reformed was strong and harsh. He saw it only a second. A sudden glimpse, the hawklike beak, thin lips, wild gray eyes, dilated nostrils, long sharp teeth.

A shattering roar. A cataclysmic force that mashed him flat. He was blinded. Deafened. The whole world burst loose in front of him. He was spun back, flattened. Rolled over and left behind. Smashed by a blazing fist that penetrated him and disappeared into the void beyond.

The void was everywhere. He was falling. He fell a long way, utterly weightless. Things drifted past him. Globes. Luminous balls. He caught at them foolishly; they ignored him and went on drifting.

Whole swarms of glowing balls flitted around him. For a time he thought they were night-flyers, gray moths that had caught fire. He slapped at them, only vaguely alarmed. More surprised than anything.

Then he noticed he was alone. And it was completely silent. But that wasn't so strange. There was nothing to make noise, no matter whatsoever. No earth. No sky. Only himself. And the steamy void.

Water was falling around him. Huge hot drops that sizzled and seared on all sides. He could feel thunder; it was too far away to hear, and anyhow, he didn't have any ears. And no eyes. He couldn't touch, either. The luminous balls continued to drift through the scorching rain; now they passed through what had been his body and calmly out the other side.

A group of the luminous balls seemed familiar. After measureless time and much thought he managed to place them.

The Pleiades.

It was suns drifting around and through him. He felt aimlessly alarmed; tried to pull himself together. But it was no use. He was spread out too far, over trillions of miles. Gaseous and vague. And slightly luminous, too. Like an extragalactic nebula. Spanning numerous star clusters, infinite systems. But how? What kept him from

He was dangling. By one foot. Head downward, twisting and turning in a billowing sea of luminous particles, swarms of suns growing smaller each moment.

More and more suns swept past him on their way out of existence. Like a deflated balloon, the sphere that was the universe fizzled and danced briefly and closed in around him. Its last moments were too short to be counted; all at once it leaped wildly and vanished. The floating suns, the luminous clouds, were all gone. He was outside of the universe. Hanging by his right foot, where it had once been. Now what was there? He twisted around and tried to look up. Darkness. A form. A presence holding him.

Ormazd.

His terror was so great he couldn't speak. It was a long way down; there was no end to it. And there was no time; he'd never cease falling, if Ormazd let go. Yet, at the same instant, he knew there could be no falling, either. There was no place to fall. How could he fall?

Something gave. He clutched wildly and tried to hang on. Tried to crawl back up. Like a frightened monkey swarming up a rope. He reached, groped, begged for mercy. For pity. And he couldn't even see whom he was pleading with. Only a vast presence. A sense of being. Ormazd was there. He was in Ormazd. Praying piteously not to be cast out. Not to be ejected.

No time passed. But it took quite a while. His terror began to change. It transformed itself subtly. He remembered who he was. Ted Barton. Where he was. He was hanging by his right foot, beyond the universe. Who was dangling him? Ormazd, the God he had liberated.

Dull anger stirred him. He had released Ormazd. And somehow he had been swept up in Ormazd's parabola. As the God ascended, he had been yanked along.

The God was expressionless. Barton could read no feeling, no pity. But he didn't want pity. He was mad clear through. The whole thing burst loose inside him, a single thought boiling up furiously. It raged out of him loud and clear.

“Ormazd!” His thought clanged through the void. Reverberations echoed back, sent him vibrating. “Ormazd!” His thought was reinforced, given body and weight; courage grew and heated his outrage. “Ormazd, put me back!”

It had no effect.

“Ormazd!” he shouted. “Remember Millgate!”

Silence.

Then the presence dissolved. He fell again, down and down. Once more, luminous dots drifted through him. His being collected itself and dropped like hot rain.

And then he hit.

The impact was terrific. He bounced, shrieked with pain and was caught. Shapes formed. Heat. A blinding white flame. The sky. Trees, dark and gloomy in the early-morning twilight, yet strangely illuminated by dancing fire. The dusty road under him.

He was stretched out on his back, knocked flat. Ahriman's horde of rats and golems were swarming toward him; he could hear their claws scrabbling louder, growing into an eager din. The whole world, the Earth, its sights and sounds and smells. The scene, the moment he had left. Shady House.

No time had passed. Doctor Meade's empty husk still tottered in front of him. Still on its feet. It split and peeled back, shriveled up, discarded and forgotten. Then it slowly collapsed, a bit of charred ash, waste particles. Like everything else for yards around, it had been scorched dry, as the smoldering shaft of pure energy released itself.

“Thank God,” Barton whispered hoarsely. He staggered back and threw himself flat. The plucking feelers of filth, the extensions of Ahriman, were sliding and oozing over the side of the slope, a few yards from him. They touched the charred corpses of rats and golems and snakes Ormazd had left behind, and then came on. They inched their way greedily toward Barton, but it was too late.

Barton crawled to a safe place, crouched, and held his breath. In the sky, the God Ormazd raced up to give battle. Ahriman snapped his extensions back like rubber bands, suddenly aware of danger. In an instant they closed, time too small to be known, distances too vast for human understanding.

The fragment, glimpsed by Barton's mortal eyes, indicated it was going to be quite a fight.

The outlines of the two gods were still dimly visible, as the sun left the mountains and began to illuminate the world.

They had grown fast. In the brief flash, like a billion suns exploding, the two gods had swept beyond the limits of the Earth. A momentary pause, and then the impact. The whole universe shuddered. They met head-on, body to body. Direct impasse, one against the other. The blazing swath that was Ormazd. The icy emptiness that was it, the cosmic wrecker, trying to swallow its brother and absorb Him.

It would be a long time before the battle was over. As Meade had said, probably a few more billions of years.

Bees were arriving in vast swarms. But it didn't matter much anymore. The valley—the whole Earth—had been passed by. The battleground had widened. It took in everything, every particle of matter in the universe, and perhaps beyond. Rats streaked wildly off, covered with stinging, lashing bees. Golems fled for cover and tried frantically to stab their way free. For every needle wielded by a tiny fist there were fifty angry bees. It was a losing game.

And, interestingly, some of the golems were sliding back into shapeless blobs of clay.

The snakes were the worst. Here and there the few remaining Wanderers were stoning them in the time-honored fashion. Stoning and crushing them underfoot. It did him good to see the blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl grinding a copperhead under her sharp heel. The world was getting back in its right orbit, at long last.

“Barton!” a piping voice cried, close to his foot. “I see you were successful. Here, behind the stone. I don't want to come out until it's safe.”

“It's safe,” Barton said. He crouched down and held out his hand. “Hop on.”

The golem came quickly out. There had been a change, even in the short time since he had last seen her. He lifted her up high, where he could get a good look at her. The morning sunlight sparkled on her bare limbs. Moist and glittering. A slim, lithe body that took his breath away.

“Hard to believe you're only thirteen,” he said slowly.

“I'm not,” was the prompt answer. She turned her supply body this way and that, to catch the light better. “I'm ageless, Teddy dear. But I'm going to need a little outside help. There's still a strong impression by it on this material. Of course, that's rapidly fading.”