confusion of the maze to escape the shadows that ~ut
fuming away into an unbearable brlghtness.~a s features were visible. They were bristly and was a long
time later, after he had distilled all ~ick, dull gaping. The puffed lips moved, but Henley memories from
the blood-wallow of mammals, that~ard nothing. The face was moronic, the forehead
~: ........ ~ ~ ~ ' ing light his fi&und and bulging, filling up the sockets so that the aga,,, apF~ua~, ........ Xlt of smok o o , _ _ _
~;~; .... ;,~ .~. nd
remembered with a shudder, he had to stare up from under the skull. An idiot's face. The lips continued to move in a whisper. As then the breeze shifted and was full of patterns as pressed by.
The silky curves or air carried a voice, scrawny and wicked: Shut your ears big, let the darkness come unrolling from your eyes and your fingz blow longer all in the stillness. Shut your ears Henley.
Henley straightened as if struck. The voice was horrible. He tried to heave himself to his feet, but the effort collapsed him, and he squelched into the mud. The heat of the black sun thudded against the back his neck.
He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to will himself awake, but the dream was unbreakable.
So there he lay, feeling as if he were wrinkling smaller in the alien light, drying out to a dusty ch that
whispered away in the breeze, scattering through an incommensurable darkness.Black.
A darkness that was palpable. A thick oozing mass of black. Immense galleries of space, choirs of distance and at their centre, a mountain of black convulsing, engulfing all sound, all light.
With a terrible shriek, Henley wrenched awake. He was in a bed in a darkened room.
He was sitting perfectly still in his hospital bed, Henley t utterly transformed. The room was empty, but that s
only an appearance that confuted reality. The darkness of the room was cellular and shifting, its ative silence humming - a mockery of the void, the flute emptiness that he had just risen from. That dream deadhess was still there, but it was disguised, king as an emptiness at the centre of all things, rapacious black holes invisible behind reflecting surges: walls, a night table, a window...
tt first light, a doctor came in with his medical trt. Henley could see through him, sensed the doc"s surprise at finding him awake, saw his body disolve into a cloud of atoms, a confusion of energies temporarily united, and, at their centre, blackness.
The doctor unwrapped Henley's foot, and for the first time since waking, Henley stared at his own body. He could see through it as well, but at the foot there was something different - it was leaking darkness. Threads of blackness radiated from it, shafted up along his leg, his knee. Seeing it, he remembered the sharp rock, remembered hiding the cache beneath trees, remembered...
all he could sense at first. His eyelids tugged open! 'Henley their mineral stare facing a wall.
Gradually sou~
sifted through, and he heard footsteps, sensed a fa~ medicinal stain on the air. He was in a hospital, al that
realization calmed him. Yet there was no chance to wonder what had happened because it was s~
happening. The very air around him seemed to pulse with the massed blackness of his nightmare -
Easton snapped awake.
Christ! Where am I?'
The doctor looked up with a benign but puzzled expression. 'Relax, Mr Easton. You're in good hands.'
Ralf prowled the carpet of a consultation room St Vincent's Hospital. He was exhausted, having been able to sleep only in snatches for the last week.
No - not a nightmare. Reality! here were fever sores at the corners of his mouth, and He had been gangplanked into a perpetual nig! walked with a slight limp. Nervous as a rat, he shuffled from corner to corner, hands deep in vate room, and when Ralf entered, he essayed a pockets. He was of average height with flat downwa~nile. Ralf went over to him directly, without smiling,
slanting snake eyes and a pachuco haircut. Bene~d leaned close to his face. 'Where is it, coconut?'
his madras shirt he carried a butterfly switchblur Henley kept smiling. He made a small feathering and strapped to his leg under his trousers was~esture with one hand and stared remorselessly into specially modified bayonet. His face was smoot~h ~l~e flat dark good-looking, with flameporcelain,
sun-dark and scribbled with many fine b10~bright hair, eyes. He was jawline clean as a knife, and grey glasswrinkles.
,[~plinter eyes that looked a little crazy from the medi-
When he heard the scream, he stopped in his traC~ation. 'Since when did they start letting baboons in
and his charred eyes narrowed. It was Henley. Hh:c~ere~'
sure. Though he had known him only briefly, 'Don't loose-lip me, Easton.'
certain that he recognized something about that 'How'd you find me, Ralf?'
the . . .'
a whimpering quality that he associated with 'When you didn't show last week It wasn't a scream of pain. It was fear. 'Last week? How long I been?'
An hour later, a doctor came in - young, thin-bon~~ 'Don't you know? You been out nine days. The only
with long intelligent hands. 'He's come around.' good thing that happened to you is that I tentwentied
'What's wrong with him?' before Gusto or his bad boys did. They'd have left The doctor shrugged. 'No idea. It's the zaniest Ca,nothing for the hospital but a cleanup bill.'
tonia I've ever seen. He sent off theta waves the wh~ Henley closed his eyes and shook his head. A weight time he was out - the EKG of an alert person. Yet!heavy as heat lay on the back of his neck.
And
there refused to respond to any form of stimulation, his e~ere memories, ugly nightmare memories, of
darkwere dilated, his blood sugar way down. In some Winess, a maze, a black sun, a horrible whispering...
it's all related to the wound on his left foot. That th~ 'I laid out a lot of coin to et ou this rivate box'
g Y P ,
~m 1 refused to start heahn until about forty
s' p y ' g ' -~Ralf went on. He reached into his pocket and pulled minutes ago. Fibrinogen was actually dissolving at t~ut a jangle of dog tags. 'Your brother's plates. I figured
wound site.' they'd do more good here than they would where he's
'But he's going to pull through, isn't he?' itrashed. I used them to convince the meds that you
'I think so. His vital organs, nervous and lyr~nd I are kin. It was the only way of taking charge.'
systems, are all unaffected.' 'What about Gusto?'
Ralf released an audible sigh, ran a hand over i Ralf shook his head, contentious. 'He wants your face.
'When can I see him?' ears, clown. He figures you ripped him. What else is
'Now, if you like. He's remarkably alert for all ~. the stooge to think after more than a week? The best
been through.' thing for you to do is tell me where that skeejag is so I Henley Easton was sitting up in the bed ~i :can Tighten him up.'
60 New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos The Star Pools 61
Henley rubbed the back of his neck. A retinal af~ ~trian landscape - a parking lot. Henley recognized
image of the black sun seemed to be hovering befo ~Ralf's car and watched dumb-faced as a black man
in
him. Everything looked dark, outlined by a soft my iduck trousers unholstered a pistol and knelt down in
cal shine. ' No way, huckster. You'd just run it.' the back seat of an adjacent white Chevy. Then, just
'What?' Ralf's face darkened with indignation. 'r!as swiftiy, the image splintered.
your cover man.'
Henley looked cool and arrogant. 'You were my br~neeR~pf laidkiad.c'allused hand on Henley's shoulder. 'You rest,
cover man, and he was minced at Ngoc Linh.' Henley blinked, rubbed his temples. With cold objec-Ralf's emotional valence swung from indignation,~tivity, every rift and flaw in the opposite wall, every