"I think I"ve found its transmission antenna."
"The things I do for love! What? Where?"
"That crystal thing on its head. That humming noise coincides with its vibration." I shook my head. "I suppose I could try to shoot the thing off, but it"s a sucky target in this light and at this distance."
Jodi stared at it with a look of revelation that startled me.
"Jodi? Sweetheart, what is it?"
"Clint, tell me: doesn"t that thing look almost exactly like a couple of winegla.s.ses from here?"
I looked. "Well, yeah, it does. So?"
"I"d put that hum right up around my high B."
My mouth dropped open and stayed that way. "You can"t be serious!"
"I"ll bet you twenty bucks it"ll work."
"You"re nuts! You"d need to get right up to it-twenty, thirty feet at the outside-and it"s looking kinda antsy already."
"So, like you have a better idea, Mr. Genius?"
I thought about it. "No," I finally muttered. "But hold on a second. I"d better get stuff ready, in case this crazy idea of yours does work."
I pulled stuff from the pack, sorted it out, fitted things together, checked the connections. "Okay." I looked over at the monstrous creature and turned, grabbing Jodi tight. "You be d.a.m.n careful, y"hear? I ain"t lookin" to see you eaten by some rockworm."
The slight quiver in her voice answered my concern. "Hey, don"t worry, it"s no big deal. You should see the rats on a New York subway."
"I have seen the rats on a New York subway. They aren"t anywhere near as bad as-"
She clucked her tongue disparagingly. "That was just Manhattan, you tourist. I"m talking about Queens. Now stop distracting me."
She took a deep breath and hummed to herself for a few moments, running scales up and down, loosening her throat and lungs so they could deliver when needed. As she did so, she started stripping off all the extraneous metal. Her backpack hit the floor as she started a run of do-re-mi and her shirt and pants (with metal rivets) joined it a few moments later as she ran back down the scale, followed by the wetsuit.
Being human-okay, male human-I could at least appreciate the view, which was magnificent even if stopping just short of being indecent. Jodi"s sports bra and panties had no metal in them, so she left them on. Still, there was a definite exotic charm in the setting, especially with the waiting monster in the background. Any fantasy ill.u.s.trator in the world would have been in seventh heaven.
Jodi stood still for a moment, muscles just a bit too tense, then took a deep breath and started walking forward.
As before, once she got within seventy feet, the creature raised its head and started humming. But this time Jodi wasn"t wearing anything metal to be affected. She kept moving forward slowly, forty feet, thirty, twenty-five, twenty . . .
At twenty feet, the Magon hissed and moved slightly. Jodi stopped and opened her mouth. A pure note issued forth, one matching the eerie hum precisely in pitch. The hum instantly sounded louder than ever, and Jodi"s voice responded, increasing volume steadily.
The Magon must have encountered caverns in which it had heard feedback. The hum started to fade for a moment as it stopped generation. But nothing had ever tried this trick on it before; as Jodi made a step forward, its instincts forced it to begin the defensive signal generation again.
Jodi"s face was as set as a marble statue, giving out an unending, unwavering tone that I knew could not be sustained much longer, a crescendo of echoing sound that was answered in the swiftly-building hum that she was trying to drive out of control. The Magon moved jerkily, trying to shake its head and drive away an indescribable sensation, starting a lunge forward but drawing back as the movement increased the resonance. Even from this distance I saw Jodi"s face changing color slightly, reddening from the effort of wringing the last dregs of air from her lungs to maintain the feedback cycle. She was running out of air, it wasn"t going to work-
And then the sound of her own pure voice echoed out from behind me, doubled and redoubled, as the Nowethada, having caught on to her plan, all joined together to imitate the same precise sound. Though they were much farther away, there were twelve of them, and they were putting all the strength into it they could; with their ability to imitate other sounds perfectly, they did exactly what was needed. They maintained the resonance as the Magon gave a frustrated whine and finally moved, in fits and starts, towards Jodi.
But by maintaining the resonance, the Nomes had given Jodi a breather. She backed up two steps, her lungs refilled, and this time her voice seemed to split the room with a single note of high-pitched thunder. The resonant hum from the Magon rose with her volume, becoming louder, the creature scrabbling now to reach its own forehead with claws just a bit too short-and the crystal antenna exploded with enough force to send shards flying thirty feet.
The Magon gave a shriek that pierced my ears like an icepick and lunged at Jodi; no longer under control, just berserk and out to kill the one that hurt it. Jodi ran.
I stood still and let her run past me. As the Magon followed-ignoring me completely in its mania to get Jodi-I swung the iron at one of its legs hard enough to break it. There was no heating; Jodi"s trick had ended that problem. The monstrous centipedal creature skidded to a halt and whipped around, screaming at me-and that"s when I pitched the ball in my other hand down its throat.
For a moment only I saw it, sparkling silvery in the LED light with its duct-taped surface. Then I flung myself flat behind a low, domelike stalact.i.te.
The blast deafened me and shattered helict.i.tes sixty feet away. When I rose up, I could see that the Magon was writhing on the floor, headless and dying. All Jodi and I had to do was dance like madmen to stay out of the way of the rocky coils until they juddered slowly into stillness. Two pounds of C-4 makes for a h.e.l.l of a case of indigestion.
Rokhaset and the other Nomes moved forward slowly. Even though they didn"t have expressions, everything about the way they moved shouted out their incredulity. "Clinton Slade, Jodi Goldman . . . you have defeated a Magon. I did not think it possible."
"Nishtkefelecht, it"s nothing. Without you singing backup, my main performance would"ve bombed. We did it together."
"Perhaps, perhaps. Still, such a thing has not been done in my memory."
"Enough time to congratulate later. Let"s finish this job and get out of here before they come back to check on us."
As we turned towards the door, a quiver ran through the floor. Then another, stronger shake that jangled the remaining helict.i.tes.
"Jh"amos! They know we have won out here. They seek to complete the ritual now, though it will be slightly weakened!"
"Oh, no they don"t!"
Into the room we ran. There were some guards now, running to stop us in these last desperate minutes, but this time I had the pistol out and was shooting. It probably wouldn"t kill them, but the impact of the slugs startled them, knocked them off balance, broke armor where it hit. I ran past, kicking over a tall stone with an intricate crystal atop it, and then I saw him-like Rokhaset, bigger than his subjects, surrounded by crystalline structures, mumbling incomprehensible sounds. His personal guard swung at me, but I bowled him over and grabbed the Lisharithada ruler, swinging him right up against the wall. "Rokhaset!" I shouted. "Tell "em to cut it out right now, or I"m about to break their king in half!"
Rokhaset and the Lisharithada exchanged hurried words. "They say it is all over for them in any case, now that you monsters have found them. They might as well take us all with them."
"It"s all over! Tell "em, Rokhaset-we only got here because you showed us, and we ain"t told anyone else!"
A shattering sound told me Jodi was finishing off the crystals. The Lisharithada king struggled desperately in my grip; then, as the sound of crashing crystal faded, went limp.
"It would seem, Clinton Slade, that he has recognized a losing position, now that Jodi Goldman has destroyed the channeling crystals."
I dropped the king. "Okay. So they can"t do the earthquake now?"
"No, Clint. It will be a long time before they can regrow such a ma.s.s of channeling crystals and even attempt such a ritual again."
"Good. Let"s go get your stuff, Jodi, and go home."
The Lisharithada king suddenly whirled around, yanking a long staff of stone capped with a green-glowing gem from its hiding place in the depression from which I"d yanked him. I threw up my hands instinctively, but the gem hit me like a wrecking ball combined with a cattle prod. Concussion and seething energy catapulted me backwards, twitching.
The room erupted in renewed combat as the king directed his next attack, a sickly emerald bolt of energy, straight at Jodi. She tried to block it with her steel rod and had no more success than I had. Seeing her collapse, I tried desperately to get up, but my legs and arms wouldn"t move.
Rokhaset roared something I couldn"t make out, and there was a confused exchange of lightnings, red and green clashing as though the rainbow was having an internal debate. A glittering, three-crested head loomed above me, then fell as Rokhaset"s own scepter came down on it.
Everything was dim, silent. I wondered why it was growing so dark, realized that I must be losing consciousness.
"Clinton Slade! Can you hear me?"