Completely surrounded now, Stroud heard the second lich speak his name. "Stroud, I am with you. It is I, Esruad."
Stroud feared it was a trick, but he looked more closely at the lich's features, and alternating with the dead skull was that of the crystal skull. The orange-eyed lich was smoking like the first one, except that it smoked with a freezing-cold air that frothed off it, and inside of this, at the heart of it, there was a visible fire.
"Defend yourself!" shouted Esruad's new form, a form that required all of the energy of the skull. In Esruad's hand appeared a sword of ice that he plunged at the fiery lich, which now backed carefully away, a fire sword appearing suddenly in its grasp, materializing from within it.
Esruad attacked, the two swords pounding overhead, ringing with a spectral clash, fire and ice shattering in all directions as the serpent with its dragon body leaped onto Stroud, whose protective outer current was losing its charge.
Stroud saw the serpent head come at him with its fangs about to strike when his own scream mingled with that of the first lich. Esruad had stabbed it through its center and turned it to stone, and then the serpent dragon fell atop Stroud like a gunnysack, dead and reeking of years of decay, molten with an oozy layer of soup that sent waves of disgust through Stroud. Barely had he gotten to his feet when another snake-dragon attacked from behind, knocking him to his knees. This one had dropped from overhead where it had been clinging to the ceiling. Stroud felt the fangs lock into his throat like two enormous meat hooks; he felt the blood gush up and out, draining down his back and chest. He was in its clutches, and it had him near death when Esruad lobed it in half with his ice sword.
Stroud, weak and trembling from the venom coursing through him, knew that he was a dead man, that there was no way out from this point on. He didn't even have the strength to push away the monster that spilled its insides over him. Esruad had to do this, too, for him.
But as Esruad did so, Stroud found the strength to drag himself away from the ugly, desiccated features of his ancient ancestor, for Esruad's appearance was as gruesome as the other lich. Esruad was a lich, a long-dead wizard who had come back to life, and he seemed to grow in strength here amid the horrors of his avowed enemy, Ubbrroxx. In fact, he almost seemed to draw his new existence from the creature, as if he was in cohorts with it and had played Stroud for a fool.
"Yes, I draw strength from this place, but not from the demon," said Esruad, reaching a spindly, dead hand to him. "You have brought me to the realm where I can flourish in order to fight our common enemy, Stroud. You must continue to believe, for if you fail to do so, I can't protect you any further."
Stroud didn't know what to believe, and yet Esruad had warned that it would come to this. Ubbrroxx was deliberately placing doubt in his mind, dividing their combined strength.
And here stood Esruad as Stroud had never seen him before, his sword gone back inside the body from which it had materialized, standing in tattered yet royal raiments that hung limply on a once noble frame below the mummified creature that had stepped from the ages.
"You have no reason to fear me," Esruad almost shouted, angry at Stroud's reluctance. "If you fear me, if you doubt me, the venom of the creature will take you. Fight your eyes, Stroud. Use that mind of yours! That will."
Stroud had been warned by the skull time and again about appearances and deceptions, but he had not been prepared for Esruad's graveyard exterior.
Esruad came closer. Stroud flinched involuntarily. Overhead and surrounding them came the laughter of Ubbrroxx as if he were watching the scene unfold. The demon's voice said, "You have lost your human helpmate, Esruad. Now you are alone."
Stroud pulled away but Esruad draped himself over Abraham. Stroud saw the flesh-peeled body black out everything else; simultaneously, he felt an overwhelming weakness overtake his vision and his mind as he slipped helplessly into unconsciousness, falling deep into what he sensed was his last sleep as the venom reached toward his brain.
"No! No! No!" shouted Esruad at Stroud. "Nooooooo!"
Ubbrroxx's laughter shook the ship, shook its own whale belly.
Esruad looked around him, trembling so badly that the loose tatters of his death shroud shivered like leaves. But as he trembled, he put his hands through and into Stroud's midsection. Esruad's entire frame lit with a yellow to gold to orange light. As he worked over Stroud's body, he appeared to be mourning a terrible death.
Kendra lashed out with everything remaining to her. They'd come in bands, the little rodent things scurrying along the ship walls, rafters, floor, like an army of crawling bugs. There were too many of them and some had escaped the gas and darts long enough to get at their protective wear, ripping into the cloth with vicious shrews' teeth, opening all of them up to the danger of the unholy infection. She'd been talking to Stroud when the first attack occurred.
Now she was separated from Dr. Leonard and Wiz and searching for them. Wiz called out on seeing her light. "Here, over here!"
They'd retreated to the tunnels, and in the gas fog and confusion she hadn't. Now she saw that her suit pants were torn open by the awful little beasts sent to torment them and make of them three more victims to the horror here.
Stroud remained their only hope, but now she couldn't raise him on the comlink, and the eerie silence at the other end sent shivers of fear through her along with the vile virus that must surely be coursing through her now.
"Dear God, dear God," Wiz was saying when she reached him and collapsed beside him. "Leonard is not good."
Wiz's clothes, too, had been torn asunder. The fact they were still on oxygen helped, but for how long? The oxygen was fast being depleted with each scare thrown into them in this horror house. Kendra knew that a normal respiratory rate was fourteen to sixteen breaths per minute. A mental check of her own rate had her up around thirty-five. She hadn't lost any blood, had taken no bites, and for this she considered herself lucky when she saw the blood splotches over much of Leonard's body. The vile things had gotten to him, and their poisonous bites had thrown him into shock. She went desperately, perhaps futilely, to work over him, injecting him with what she prayed was a proper antidote, but as she did so Leonard, his eyes wide and without pupils, attempted to tear away what remained of her mask, snatching at her air hose, trying to get at her face any way he could.
Wiz pulled Leonard's arms from her, shouting uselessly at Leonard, who suddenly slumped over, dead. "My God, my God," repeated Wisnewski, whose remark was answered by a horrifying, building laughter that seemed to come from everywhere around them and then from Leonard's body, which was suddenly moving as with a mechanical life of its own. Leonard's frame lifted and he came at Wiz, extending his hands toward the other man, saying, "Help me, Wiz ... help me ... My God ... My Gawwwwwwwwwd!" This was followed by a bloodcurdling laugh. "Your God does not exist here! I am your god here! Kneel before your new god!"
Kendra fired one of her last darts into Leonard's body, causing it to crumple.
She rushed to a shaken Wisnewski, who could not bring himself to look on Leonard.
"We're next ... we're next," Wiz mumbled and blubbered.
"No, we're out of here. Come on, Dr. Wisnewski, come on!" She began to lead him back toward what she believed to be the way they had come to this part of the ship. "We'd best do as Stroud said. I ... I can't raise him any longer on the communicator."