ago in a ravaged Redoubt close to the great swamps where once the Mississippi
had rolled. Nobody, not even J. B. Dix, greatest of armorers, understood what
they did. All that was obvious was that they caused an implosion and matter was
pulled into a vacuum of limitless smallness.
Ryan looked back around the cliff immediately after the noise had faded. The fog
was coiling and shredding as he watched. It seemed to be disappearing into frail
towers that crumbled in on themselves. In less than a dozen heartbeats the
dreadful monster had completely gone, leaving nothing but the cold wind and
driven hail.
“Cerberus was a sentient creature, and designed precisely thus, Mr. Cawdor. Yet
it was weak precisely where it needed to be strong. Now it is gone, my dear sir,
and taking that poor fellow with it. Who cried so loud, did he not?”
Koll had disappeared with the double implosions. At least most of him had.
His right arm, two fingers missing, with the shoulder and neck and much of the
right side of the lower skull, still lay in the middle of the mangled roadway.
The survivors walked up the trail, pausing by the remains of the corpse. The
missing fingers had been sliced away as though with a razor, and the rest of the
torn flesh was cleanly severed. Both eyes were gone, as had the top of the nose.
The jaw had been hewn through by an unimaginable force, and the flesh of the
cheek and chin was laced with a pattern of tiny burns and scorch marks. The
teeth were splintered to powder in the jaw.
Taking into account the massive injuries, there was very little blood.
“We goin’ to leave him here like this for the wolves and bears?” asked Sukie,
trembling with shock.
“No. Can’t bury him. In the river, J.B.?”
“Best we can do.”
As gently as they could, the two men stooped and gathered up the remains of the
man who had been one of the strongest of the crew of the war wag. Swinging the
dismembered mass once and then heaving it as far out as they could into the
singing void, they watched as it fell into the river and joined the waters that
flowed from the glacier way up above them.
They stood mutely for several seconds. Ryan broke the spell by turning to lead
them up the trail. Now that the fog had vanished, he noticed a peculiar thing.
On their side of the barrier, the road was in terrible condition, puckered and
scratched. A hundred paces or so higher up it was in perfect condition. Smooth
and flat, unbroken by the century of neglect, untouched by weeds. It went
straight for a while, then curved sharply to the right, as though it ran into
the face of the cliff.
Neat, rectangular white stones lined the side of the road, marking off the edge
of the ravine. There was even the remains of a white line painted down the
center of the trail. The nine men and women walked slowly along, cautiously
checking all around them. Ryan stopped when he heard Doc start to chuckle.
“What in the big fire’s so funny, Doc?”
“My apologies, sir, but the sight of us all stepping as if we walked upon the
shells of eggs is risible. You see, the fog with its claws and its teeth will
have kept everyone out for a hundred years. And those within are surely
deceased. So where is the threat?”
“We’re in. Someone else might be in,” replied J. B. Dix.
“Only if they were watching and have followed us. And I doubt there are many
people in this part of the Darks.”
“What about them feathers and the skull and all that stuff? “asked Abe.
That silenced Doc’s laughter.
Though the wind kept howling about them, the ferocious cold of the past few days
was gone, and none of them put up their hoods again. Doc kept one hand on his
ancient hat. The air was notably fresher and Ryan noticed that none of them was
sweating now, as they had been in the presence of the fog.
Okie strode forward to join Ryan at the front of the group. Her dark hair was