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describe. Russell had remarked that he thought that she had simply affixed a
folk-theology term from her own era to a phenomena she couldn't understand.
Markham didn't care. To him the rumblings ahead were an obstacle to his first
true chance to learn something real, something physical, about Hell. He had
heard enough conflicting tales and mad hypotheses. He wanted data.
So he carefully duck-walked through the low, thorned bushes, waiting for a
sign that they could make a break ... And the world split.
To their right a vibrant line ran straight down from the clouds, white-hot and
sky-searing. It was like slicing a canvas, peeling back the rustic scene and
exposing beneath it the crude cardboard backing. The air. was scooped away
from the scratch-line and behind was ... nothing. White void. Endlessness.
It happened in seconds-soundless, without tremor of warning. Markham watched
as smoky white nothingness spilled from the cut in reality. He started to get
to his feet -and noise crashed about him, swarmed over his back, hammered his
ears. He whirled. To his left the trees were broken off, leveled, bare ragged
stumps. Beyond them lay an open muddy field. On it masses of men and animals
clashed in crazed final combat.
A glistening ebony elephant trampled bronzed warriors into the. mud, snorting
and bellowing. Arrows found targets, mortar rounds burst among clotted knots
of struggling figures.
And among the hooting of victory and hopeless moans of defeat strode white
blocky structures, oblivious to the chaos about them, never deviating in their
slow stately glide. Beneath them an invisible weight slammed warriors to the
mud and ground them into it, spattering blood in the air. Behind them, a
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purpling wake choked the men and woman who had survived their massive passage.
Markham spun back to the right.
The seam that split Hell widened. Milky stuff diffused from it. He felt a cold
bristling at the back of his neck and knew the cascading torrent was death,
and perhaps worse.
To the right, the battle roared and hooted and waxed bloody.
"Russell! Run!"
The Englishman stood transfixed. "Wait-I've seen something like this before.
Give the insect a chance to-"
One of the massive blocks dimpled. A dark brown wave spread from a single
point in its hard sheen. It wavered.
Markham frowned, fighting down his impulse to flee. "Is that...?"
"Yes," Russell said professorially, "the little woman. She explained to me
that these 'Hoar Gods' can fend off attacks from large, slow-moving things,
like man or beast. And also small, fast-moving arrows or bullets or the like.
But not a small, slow-moving creature, she said - such as herself."
"Sounds like they-have limited their response time windows."
The angular shimmering thing turned, as if wounded. The battle around it
quieted. Fighters stopped, lowered spears and bulky guns to watch the gravid
chalk-mountain death.
Markham waved his hand at the panorama, where only moments before there had
been deep woods. "This battle, what...?"
"These things simply appear suddenly, huge armies materializing, dying, then
vanishing. I've watched them from afar. And there are those levitating white
objects, too," Russell said, "I've seen them before, at various foolish
contests. Perhaps they seek out such events."
"Look, let's-"
The muddy field stretched far into the distance, and above the fray floated at
least a dozen of the milky oblong tilings. They had been coasting among the
carnage, but now as the nearest block veered from its path, crippled by the
spreading brown stain, so did its companions. They converged on their wounded
brother.
Markham heard-but in his mind, not his ears-the rasping voice of the
wasp-woman. "I go! Am eaten! Go you!"
The split sky to his right yawned larger.
One of the effervescing white blocks began to shower the struggling ranks
below with quick bursts of sprinkling, fine-grained amber light Again came the
woooom and again an answering thunder roll, this time from the forest on the
next hill.
"Dammit, run!"
He could see a wedge of the amber glow projecting toward them.
He took two steps and a something burst inside his head.
White.
Light.
-liquid rainbows sparkling
-booming musk melody
-impaled on shrill sharp shafts of vinegar
-granite flowers imploding
-slide and splash and wrenching fire-pain chorus
He sat down heavily amid mud and crushed, bloodstained grass.
Russell cried, "What's wrong?"
"I..." Markham did not know how to describe the sudden avalanche of blistering
sensation and swarming, scattershot knowledge that had rushed through him.
"Get up!"
"I know who they are-the white things."
"Demons?"
"No. Aliens."
"Seems a fine distinction, here."
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The wasp-woman had somehow done her deadly work. The radiance from the
wobbling alien rippled, shifted colors-and it abruptly crashed into a phalanx
of troops, throwing bodies in high arcs.
"Let's go to the right, where the thunder was," Markham yelled over the
rolling din of battle.
"The wasp-woman-"
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