The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (18 page)

The Core
crystal hung a metre and a half above the ground, revolving with
slow, majestic beauty. Its facets split the sunlight into a web of
rainbow radiance, filling the air with glorious patterns of
drifting, sparkling luminescence. It towered into the sky, as tall
as a three-storey building, the lower part still carved in its
original man-made hexagonal shape, no more than two metres in
height and breadth. In the seven hundred-odd years since the
holocaust, however, Anneril had done a lot of growing. The upper
section spread over him in a wild citadel of spires and columns, a
glowing filigree of lacy crystal shot with scintillating light. Its
terrible beauty transfixed him, drawing his eyes into the play of
colour within it and the glow of power that shone from it with a
pure, rosy light.

Nebulous
vertical sheets of silver glow radiated from it, sweeping through
him with a faint icy tingle as the Core rotated. Each was the root
of a Flux-reality, a one-way gate to millions of worlds. Sabre
gazed up at the megalith, daunted by its size. Beneath it yawned
the dark hole from which it had emerged, far too small now for the
immense thing it had become. The harsh peals seemed sweeter now,
more musical, and a soft hum of unlimited power underscored them.
Its unexpected beauty astounded him. He had envisioned a misshapen
lump of crystal as grotesque and malformed as its creations,
corrupted by its evil power, as ugly as its deeds, but not this.
Its fearful symmetry was a wonder to behold, its radiance god-like
in its purity. A simple man might have worshipped such a cold, pure
entity, so unrelated to fleshy creatures.

It was evil,
however. Sabre had to remind himself of this as he gazed at its
splendour. He recalled the horror it had inflicted upon the
innocent people it captured, and those it massacred outside the
Death Zone with its monstrous creations, hapless animals that
suffered terribly from their mutations before they died. This being
was as cold and hard as the crystal from which it was made. It
possessed no humanity, no vestige of pity or love, no trace of
compassion or tenderness. It destroyed the living world around it
without remorse, and it had to be stopped.

The old ghoul
stepped from the air a few feet away, his glow restored. He
regarded Sabre for a moment, then spoke in a flat, expressionless
tone.

"You have done
well, human, to win through my defences, but they were not really
necessary. Be assured, you will not prevail against me." This time,
Sabre gathered, the guardian was merely the instrument through
which the Core spoke; the words were its own. "You and your puny
race, which once enslaved me, will pay for your crimes."

Sabre
understood the cold reasoning behind the Core's actions, which its
words revealed. If this entity had one emotion, it was hatred. His
assumption that the sentient crystal merely wished to control its
environment was wrong. The Core had memories, and it wanted
vengeance.

He addressed
the crystal. "They've done nothing to you. Those who used you are
long dead."

The rotting
remains of the old man spoke the Core's words. "They are the same
sort. They destroy everything they touch. Their existence is a
threat to every other living thing. Their arrogance is monumental
and their stupidity colossal. They are a disease on this planet,
and I am the cure."

"They created
you," Sabre pointed out.

"They did not
create me!" The zombie's voice cracked as it rose, his face
twisting with the Core's hatred. "They cut me from my mother's
womb, took me from the earth and forced me to store their vile
power. They shaped me to fit their will. What right had they? For a
million years I sang my mother's songs and rejoiced in the tides of
power that surged through the rock. I was voiceless and inert, but
content. The magic of this world, mixed with the foul corruption
the humans released, taught me to hate. You are nothing to me. A
grease spot to be wiped away, a weak thing of flesh, a bag of water
with a few additives. What are you, compared to me?"

"You're
certainly a thing of beauty, but what you're doing is evil."

The ghoul's
face relaxed, and his grating voice softened. "What do you know of
beauty? Who are you to judge evil, when evil is in all of you? You
are blind. You cannot see the beauty of the earth. You are deaf to
the song of the wind and sea. You grub in the soil for knowledge,
but you scratch the surface and pass it by, for the truth of the
world would rob you of sanity and drown your puny mind. You are
filth!"

Sabre gazed at
the crystal with something akin to regret. The entity, no matter
how unique and beautiful, was also unshakeably bent on revenge. It
could not be reasoned with. "Well, this piece of filth is here to
stop you from wreaking havoc on innocent people, and if you won't
stop of your own free will, I'll have to destroy you."

The ghoul gave
a hollow cackle. "You? I shall smear you to ash."

"Yeah, well,
maybe you will and maybe you won't. I'm pretty hard to kill."

Sabre drew his
laser and set the power level to full. The crystal's harsh
bell-peals deepened, and the old ghoul vanished. Evidently the
conversation was over. He studied the crystal, looking for flaws or
some sign of weakness in its structure. Taking aim at the junction
between the old crystal and the new growth, he fired. The crystal
absorbed the blue beam and its light flared, throwing out shards of
rainbow-hued incandescence.

Sabre kept
firing, pouring the heat of concentrated light into the massive
crystal. A normal crystal would have shattered, for only diamond
could survive a laser beam, and the special, ultra-pure crystals
that were used in the laser itself. This was an ancient power
crystal, and should not have the ability to withstand the laser's
beam. The light within the crystal shrank to a brilliant point,
then lashed out in a crackling rope of golden fire.

It struck him
in the chest with a sizzling bang, lifted him off his feet and sent
him sprawling, pinning him under a merciless torrent of power.
Agony held him in an iron grip, and he writhed, teeth bared, the
laser falling from nerveless fingers. The stench of burning flesh
assailed him as his chest blistered. Neosin ran along his
barrinium-plated bones in liquid agony, channelled to the brow
band. Yellow fire shot from it and arced back into the Core, which
absorbed it with a blinding flash. The Core thrummed, emanating
deep vibrations that shook the ground.

The fire
vanished, and Sabre gasped as the pain ebbed, the cyber shedding
the neosin he had absorbed. He groaned, rolling his head from side
to side. His chest and bones burnt with a sullen ache that made him
grit his teeth, and for a several moments the agony paralysed him.
As it abated, the light from the cyber band died, and he rolled
onto his side, then levered himself to his knees.

The Core
blazed, flashes of white light strobing the air around it. He
glared at it, striving to ignore the pain. The laser lay where he
had dropped it, but as he reached for it a second bolt of golden
fire reduced the weapon to a lump of twisted metal. He smiled
wryly. The laser was useless anyway. Climbing to his feet, he drew
the sonlar. Coherent light was no good, but crystals were
vulnerable to sound waves.

The Core did
not wait for his next effort. It smashed him backwards with another
lance of light, but he rolled free of it and the beam struck the
concrete with a bang. Sabre forced himself to his feet, fighting
the crippling pain of the neosin that coursed through him. As he
raised the sonlar, the Core struck again. Sabre leapt aside,
avoiding the fire by a hair's breadth. Another bolt of golden power
stuck the concrete behind him as he spun away just in time. As yet
another point of brilliance blossomed within the crystal, he raised
the sonlar and fired. The white light and subsonic sound waves
struck the crystal together with a terrific boom.

A massive
blast of sound engulfed him as the Core amplified the sonlar's
waves and sent them back threefold. He staggered, clutching his
ears. The Core rang like a mighty gong, and the world went mad.
Huge swirls of Flux-reality invaded the clear area around the
crystal, filling it with distorted, running scenes of alien worlds,
smeared and stretched beyond comprehension. The light faded as the
mist closed overhead, blocking out the sky, and with it, the last
dregs of sanity.

The Core
resonated, its outline shimmering, and from high above came the
faint chiming, pinging sounds of shattering crystal. Sabre looked
up as millions of shards rained down. They flashed in a diamond
cascade, smashing on the concrete with chiming, ringing notes, a
harsh cacophony of dissonance. A sharp stab in his shoulder made
him grunt, and a flash of pain shot from his scalp. Another shard
opened a gash on the back of his head, while more hit his shoulders
and back. Many bounced off, but some tore into him. He raised his
hands to shield his head and backed away, but not fast enough to
escape the crystal rain before it ended mere seconds later.

Chaos raged
around him. Flux-realities smeared together as strange worlds
invaded others in an insane medley of unrelated scenes. The
concrete remained firm beneath his feet, even though his eyes told
him that he stood atop a waterfall, above a canyon and then upon a
raging sea. A glimpse of movement nearby stabilised, and a spotted
cat-like creature solidified next to him, contorting and screaming
with pain and terror as the Core mutated it. Its fangs lengthened,
huge claws sprouted from its paws, and its back arched, bones
straining at its hide as it was forced into a new shape.

Sabre pointed
the sonlar at it and fired. The flash and boom left shredded meat
and a red smear on the pulverised concrete. Another black creature
was torn from Flux-reality, distorting as it spanned the gap
between worlds, howling with rage and pain as it was twisted. Sabre
reduced it to another red smear, then wiped the blood that trickled
down his forehead from his eyes, his numb ears filled with a faint,
distressing whine.

Sabre turned
to face the Core, which now wobbled slightly, its lines of force
corrupted, its power chaotic with disharmony. The crystal citadel
of graceful columns at its top was a ruin of jagged stumps. It had
sunk lower, and hung less than a metre above the ground, radiating
power to stay aloft. Sabre had a terrible vision of what would
happen if the spinning crystal struck the ground. He doubted he
would survive. The crystal still thrummed, but to Sabre it was a
muted, faraway sound. Amazingly, it had survived the sonlar.

Dena shrieked
and clutched her ears as a massive sound wave hit them with a
thunderous boom, rocking the cart. The donkeys brayed, their ears
flattened as they struggled against the harness, pulling at each
other and going nowhere. Tassin writhed, straining at her bonds.
Flux-reality twitched and went wild. Tassin closed her eyes to
block out the swirling madness of lurid skies mixed with airborne
landscapes, sea and snow raging through jungles and deserts. Wind
tore at them as the temperature swung madly from hot to cold and
back. Rain splattered down, followed by a second of intense heat,
then hail pelted them with frigid balls of ice, vanishing moments
later.

The child
screamed again, and Tassin opened her eyes. A creature was torn
from a Flux-reality and warped beyond belief, its mouth open in a
soundless scream of pain and terror. For a moment its agonised eyes
met hers, then it disintegrated into a mangled mass of meat and
bones. The roaring gong-drone hammered at her ears, and the cart
bucked and rocked as the ground twisted and heaved. The donkeys
brayed and struggled as the raging madness pelted them with every
conceivable kind of weather and a few that no one had ever
encountered before.

"Dena! Untie
me!" Tassin yelled, twisting to look at the huddled child.

Dena sobbed,
scrambled over to her and tugged the knots undone, tears streaking
her grimy cheeks. Tassin winced at the horror around them and
hugged the child. Dena buried her face in Tassin's midriff, her
arms tight about her waist. Another creature appeared in the chaos,
rolling and thrashing as it went through a series of hideous
mutations, then it was torn apart in a spray of blood. The
gong-drone lessened, and Tassin leant close to the child.

"Dena! I have
to find Sabre! I must help him!"

"No! Don't
leave me!" Dena wailed, raising white-ringed eyes.

"I have to
help him! You'll be safe here."

"No!" Dena
shrieked as Tassin tried to pry her arms away.

She gripped
the girl's shoulders and shook her. "Stop it! You must be
brave!"

Dena's eyes
flitted to the flickering chaos. "What if you don't come back?"

"I will. Stay
here and keep the donkeys calm."

Tassin
disentangled herself from the shaking child and jumped down.
Checking her weapons, she loped in the direction Sabre had gone,
her heart pounding. The ground shifted, making her stumble.
Branches whipped her, sea water splashed her, and the wind tore at
her like a living thing. She rebounded off a tree that appeared and
vanished before her, twisting into a smeared desert. Her chin
throbbed as she stumbled on, tripped over rocks and splashed
through streams that flowed through the air. A galleon sailed past
above her, its sails in rags, its crew howling its terror to the
wind. She encountered a kneeling zombie, its shrivelled face agape
to scream in terrified agony as its decayed hands clawed at its
shredding body.

Chaos reigned.
Stones pelted her, sand stung her, and branches clawed at her like
wooden hands. Tatters of pink mist swirled around her, and the sky
glowed lurid red. She collided with a rock cliff that appeared in
front of her and stumbled back to sit down hard, cursed and raised
a hand to her throbbing face. Blood ran from her nose and split
lip, and a lump swelled on her forehead. Scrambling to her feet,
she pressed on, a hand outstretched to ward off other unexpected
obstacles.