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Rather than the ambush he expected, he saw a large pavilion erected in an open
lot. Banners flut-tered from poles driven into the ground near the en-trance.
"In there," Shukeli growled. "The royal archi-tect's office."
"Why does the royal architect want to see me?"
Shukeli lifted a sloping shoulder in a shrug, as if the matter were of little
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage importance or interest to
him. "How do I know? I was told to fetch you. I fetched you. Do what you want
from here on out."
With a surprising quickness for one so bulky, Shukeli turned smartly on his
toes and stalked away in the direction they had come.
Ryan studied the pavilion suspiciously, seeing no sign of movement in or
around it. A single light burned from within. He strode purposefully forward,
thrusting aside the door flap.
A brass lamp suspended from a support pole cast the interior with a wavery
yellow illumination. Di-rectly beneath the lamp, seated at a paper-covered
table was the hard, bronze figure of Akhnaton. He looked up as Ryan entered,
and even at a distance, his crimson eyes shone like baleful flames.
He wore a simple brown leather belted jerkin that bore a disk worked in gold
thread upon the breast. His head was bare, and he was completely alone.
Ryan cursed his split second of hesitation, then he crossed the dozen feet
separating him from the giant man of bronze. "You're the royal architect?"
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"Among my other functions," Akhnaton replied in his thrumming, controlled
voice. "Would you consider this our second or third meeting, Cawdor?"
Ryan didn't rise to the bait. His stomach muscles fluttered in
adrenaline-inspired spasms. He tried to meet the man's crimson gaze,
unblinking and un-flinching.
"What do you want?"
Akhnaton leaned back in his camp chair, looking him up and down appraisingly.
"No need to be afraid, Cawdor. If I wanted you dead, vultures would be
feasting on your liver by now."
"I'm not afraid of you, Hell Eyes."
A rueful smile touched the man's lips. "I haven't been called that in many,
many years. And then, not to my face."
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage
"I asked you a question what do you want?"
Akhnaton gestured expansively. "I have every-thing I want. An empire. A
dynasty."
"Except," Ryan said, "a queen to share it with."
"You're far more astute than I gave you credit for. Perhaps a brain does lurk
inside that grubber's shell." Akhnaton paused and added, "You're right,
Cawdor. I have no queen. You can help me to rectify that."
Ryan's carefully maintained neutral expression slipped for a moment. "How?"
"I want you to tell Krysty Wroth that you under-stand she and I are fated to
be together and you are releasing her from whatever vows she may have made to
you. In exchange for that, I will grant you and your companions safe conduct
back to the re-doubt and the gateway. I will give you anything you need."
Ryan stared at the bronze mask, his mind awash with conflicting emotions. He
said nothing for a very long time. Finally, he surprised Akhnaton and, to an
extent, himself. He laughed, loud and scornfully.
"My proposition amuses you?" Akhnaton's tone was cold and hard.
"Deeply. I thought you were some kind of super mind mutie. Why don't you just
mentally force me to do your bidding?"
Akhnaton didn't answer.
"Could it be," Ryan continued sarcastically, "that Krysty would instantly
sense that you had me in your power and tell you what I'm telling you now& to
go fuck yourself?"
The shock was so unexpected, so terrible that Ryan nearly collapsed. Time,
space,
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage the universe darkened and
turned. His surroundings shattered into a kaleidoscope of flying fragments. He
drifted among them, and the sudden terror of it dragged a scream up his
throat. He clamped his jaws shut on it. The swirling fragments coalesced into
the same image, infinitely repeated a grinning, malevolent skull, the fires of
hell erupting from the eye sockets.
Ryan had engaged in hundreds of battles in his life, but never one where a
powerful will tried to beat down his spirit. But the image of Krysty and Dean
were his anchors in reality. Ryan forced him-self to stare at the hundreds of
thousands of fiendish, grinning skulls. His love for Krysty and his son was a
chain that a psychic assault couldn't break. He willed the skulls to fade,
demanding that the world steady around him.
Quite suddenly, he was in the pavilion again, standing before Akhnaton. His
heart trip-hammered in his chest, his head ached and his body was filmed with
cold sweat. But he smiled, a contemptuous twist of his mouth.
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In a low voice, Akhnaton said, "You stinking scavenger. You dung beetle of a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]