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Chapter 32
Dohan was struggling to stay alert at the controls.
(The author was struggling to keep the prepositions under control.)
It had been a long, nervous flight across the great unknown ocean, in ominous weather.
(He sat squeezed in between an angry-looking Arab and a 200-pound American tourist.)
Following the coordinates Surabot revealed, he had reached the site where Surabot had claimed Darc and Shara were abandoned.
(The old abandoned amusement park.)
He circled his craft a thousand meters above the dark desert, looking for a dot of light - a single campfire, anything.
("Finally! I've found Anything!")
For a few minutes, Dohan saw nothing but the stars.
("There's Al Pacino, and there's Meryl Streep, and...")
He checked the fuel gauge, and took the craft down for a landing. With no fuel depot within reach, he could only afford to land and lift off once - it cost too much fuel each time.
([Deep voice] The Adventures of Captain Cheapskate!)
Dohan switched on the Sunray's powerful keel searchlights, and began looking for a suitable plateau at the nearest cluster of cliffs.
At the corner of his vision, he caught sight of something - he switched off the searchlights, and looked down again. He saw a faint glow of artificial light seeping up from one of the canyons - it could be the Leper settlement Surabot had mentioned.
(Or the radioactive glow emitted by John Wayne's grave.)
Without consideration, he lowered the craft in a spiral trajectory and slowed down to land, aiming the searchlights down. He found a suitable flat surface at the top of the canyon.
(Fred Thompson's lower lip.)
And so the craft touched down in a cloud of dust. The entire Leper tribe was alerted by the noise and light.
(They thought it was a Madonna concert.)
(Ladies and gentleman, President Hillary Rodham Clinton!)
More outsiders are coming from the sky, it told her. More enemies! Kill the first ones, and hide the bodies before the new outsiders find them. If the new invaders find the white-haired man and his woman, they will wreak revenge on us.
("Quick! Hide Anderson Cooper!")
Hurry! Stir up the tribe!
(Stir up a bunch of kids dressed up as New Romantics!)
(Innocent lights, slaughtered in cold blood!)
"Someone is coming here," Claw told them. "In a flying machine. Are they looking for you?"
("Who? Mr. Someone or They?")
"Claw, I have found a cure for the -"
("- embarrassing itch -")
"I - what?"
"I mean, I have found half the solution.
(Like President Bush, he excels in "half-solutions.")
If we just keep calm, I can explain to the tribe -"
("- that they should ditch their New Romantics wardrobe -")
"Damn you, city-dweller! Double-Mouth is down there, telling the tribe that they should kill you both, before the newcomers find you! They won't listen to me!"
("Because mutants are born deaf!")
Darc stiffened, and replied: "Then I must go and meet the new visitor. I think I know who it is."
("And please ignore my stiffy.")
If it was Dohan, he might ruin everything and attack the tribe. Or slay Darc in order to save him. Both prospects seemed uninviting.
(Not to the readers, they don't!)
("How Not To Be Seen.")
The plateau was dark and featureless, and what little light came from the nearby canyon had receded to almost nothing.
("How much is 'almost nothing'?" - "Exactly as much as A.R.Yngve makes from writing.")
Whoever was down there, knew he was coming.
(That's what she said!)
He came fully armed with a loaded laser rifle, light body armor, an electric helmet lamp, an aluminum shield, and a light sword. But Dohan was freezing and alone against the unknown, an enemy he had never even seen.
("Where do you find 'the unknown'?" - "I don't know.")
"Hell" as a concept did not exist in Dohan's religion - the afterlife was spent in exactly the same world as the living - but to him, approaching Leper territory alone was the equivalent of stepping down into hell.
(Or Detroit.)
His mind had been shamefully unfocused during the entire flight, unable to plan anything; how could he plan, when he had no notion of what lay ahead?
(The shame was too great. His mind had to commit seppuku!)
Dohan saw no monsters lurking in the vicinity.
([Childish voice] "Hello? Any monsters under my bed?")
He quietly moved the twenty or thirty meters to the edge of the canyon and peered down, without switching on the helmet lamp.
([Voice-over voice] We secretly switched his helmet lamp with an alarm clock. Let's watch!)
The canyon resembled a near-straight, layered crack in the rock, pitch black at the bottom.
(And next to it lay other forgotten Vin Diesel movies.)
He wished he had brought one of the robots; they could easily see in the dark. Dohan looked and listened for a while - and then he thought he heard an echo of voices from deep down below.
([Sings] I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you cry...)
He staggered back from the cliff's edge, struck by the impulse
("Ow!")
that the gaping canyon was reaching out to suck him down
(Whoa!)
- he whirled around and lit the lamp, let the lightbeam sweep across the plateau.
Long shadows seemed to run away from the light - but no Lepers were in sight.
(Spot the three glaring flaws in the above sentence, and you win a prize!)
Was he imagining the voices?
(Well, strictly speaking this is fiction...)
He concentrated, like before a joust, letting the trembling and fear recede from his body. His mind focused, and he knew what he had to do.
(Turn around, and run away as fast as he could.)
He took a signal-flare with a small parachute from his belt, set it alight, and tossed it down the canyon.
(But he forgot to detach his belt, and fell screaming in flames to his doom. The End.)
Dohan gasped - in the light from the falling torch, dozens of tiny shapes ran for cover.
(Midgets? Ants? The total number of uncorrupted cells in Vladimir Putin's body?)
More voices trailed up from the canyon, confirming the presence of many people. The canyon might be forty, thirty meters deep.
(Man! Nobody writes "vague distances" better than A.R.Yngve.)
Dohan felt a sensation of unreality, that he was dreaming.
(Keeping it unreal! Respect!)
What drove him to do this?
(A taxi?)
Even if Darc was there, captured by those figures, there was no hope if they were Lepers.
(Or Sean Hannity fans.)
Only a miracle could have saved Darc, or - Darc could.
(The Little Darc Who Could.)
Dohan saw it clearly now - his faith was what drove him, the belief that Darc was the incarnated King, a man beyond mere mortals - and perhaps he did not even know it himself. This was not a rescue mission but a crusade, a test of faith.
(Oh dear. We're waay into La-La Land now.)
He kneeled down at the edge, cupped his hands and yelled defiantly into the dark chasm: "I have come for a man named Darc! Bring the man called Darc to me alive, or you shall all die!"
([French accent] "Now go! Or I shall taunt you a second time!")
The echo of his command rolled through the chasm.
([Sings] Rolling rolling rolling, keep those echoes rolling...)
The distant voices returned, and he could see torch-lit figures ascend up the vertical cliff walls on ladders and primitive elevators. He could not discern any white-haired man among them - the figures were all cloaked.
He was not afraid, he told himself, not with a higher power on his side.
("I HAVE THE POWERRR!!")
(And rope subway.)
She rushed to the ledge, and quickly helped more villagers climb the ladders.
("Rush with me, friends, towards the danger!")
The agitated Lepers were carrying torches and spears.
(The calm Lepers were carrying flowers.)
Claw strode out of his house to meet the mob, flanked by his two other wives and a few trustworthy men.
(Larry, Moe and Curly.)
Darc and Shara took to hiding at an outer recess of the shelf, close to an overhanging cliff. They had not yet decided upon escape, and the ladders going down were clearly blocked.
(So they called for a ladder plumber.)
Dohan - Darc knew it was him - had landed at least ten meters higher up, on the plateau which was accessible via a few risky pathways - these were now completely in the dark.
(I know just how they feel. I'm trying to follow this story.)
Claw took a torch and assumed authority with a loud request to the assembled Lepers: "What in the name of the Goddess are you doing? I demand an explanation!"
("What's all this then?")
Double-Mouth stepped forth and pointed a torch at her husband.
("YEOOW!! I'm on fire!")
"It is we who demand an explanation!" she shouted. "The village is under attack by the city-people, and it's all because of Darc and his whore Shara!"
(Now that's just rude.)
Shara could hear the insult from her hideout, and she silently wished for a chance to bury a knife in Double-Mouth's throat - but fear kept her put.
(Fear of the FCC.)
Up above the commotion, Dohan was unable to clearly make out the voices; he thought he heard the names "Darc" and "Shara" being shouted.
(He lived completely in a world of his own imagination. 'Nuff said.)
The Leper crowd aimed their heads upward at the sound of Dohan's voice, as he called out again: "Darc! Darc! If you are there, tell me what to do!"
("I've stirred the eggs and mixed in the flour, now what do I do with the baking powder?")
Darc wanted to answer, but if he did the Leper mob would trap him. He slowly began to feel his way along the cliff wall, toward the narrow ledge. Perhaps he had a small chance...
(... or not.)
Shara grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.
"The other way," she whispered in his ear. "I saw Up-Mouth take a hidden path there."
As they reversed their direction, sticking to the shadows, the argument between Claw and Double-Mouth grew more heated.
("Did not!" - "Did too!" - "Did not!" - "Did too!")
The canyon walls amplified their voices, turning the place into a vast auditorium.
(With an audience of mutants. Your typical Democrat convention!)
"What is it you want with our visitors?" Claw barked at Double-Mouth.
"It's not what I want," Double-Mouth retorted.
("It's what our children want! Our precious children, America's horribly deformed future.")
"It is the tribe which demands Darc's head, for betraying us to the city-people! He attracted them here with his strange instruments!"
("His didjeridoo, and his theremin, and that... thingamajig!")
It was her other mind speaking through her mouth - and it wanted nothing but the death of Darc, who might remove the evil double from Double-Mouth's body.
Dohan thought his heart jumped in his chest, when he heard the faint echo of Darc's name being called again, and began to understand the nature of the argument going on below.
(It's rare that a faint echo gains a higher level of understanding.)
He yelled: "Hold out, Darc, it's me! I will wait for a sign from you!"
Darc heard him faintly, but kept sneaking onward without a sound. Not just yet...
("And may I add that your pants are on fire!")
Double-Mouth clasped her shaven head with exaggerated concern:
(*CLASP!*)
"Can you hear what my own husband is saying? He's humiliating one of his own loving wives before the tribe! How could you, my love?"
("In front of all these people?")
"You don't love me," he sneered. "And - it is you who want Darc dead. What good would his death do for the tribe? If it is his friends who are coming for him now, now when he's found a cure for the Plague -"
("- of CSI spinoffs?")
Claw halted, amazed at what he had just said. Double-Mouth was taken aback, and the Leper crowd fell dead silent.
(The silence... of the grave! In a town called Death City!)
"Yes," Claw said in a softer tone, "Darc just told me that he has found the cure... solved the mystery of the Plague. Why is it, that you hate him so? Don't you want us to become free from this cursed existence? Why should we not be redeemed at last?"
(Because bad things happen to good people...)
Double-Mouth gaped, unable to reply. Her mad, but perfectly undistorted face turned and jerked, as her flickering gaze searched for support in the mob.
(And that's why we now call her "Jerkface.")
She found no friend, only a wall of hateful eyes - some in faces, some in other places.
The last vestige of reason gave way in Double-Mouth's mind.
(She joined a pyramid investment scam and lost all her savings.)
She exploded at them: "I hate you all! You ugly, disgusting creatures! Your children shouldn't have been born!
("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!")
Your ancestors should've killed themselves... like Up-Mouth did! A better world if you had never existed! Don't come near me!"
Suddenly, Double-Mouth twisted her arms and clawed at her back, as if trying to reach an intense itch.
(She needed a stick, or a spatula, to reach that spot.)
She tore apart the back of her shirt, and clawed her second face in its eyes - it gargled, bit at her fingers and sputtered noises.
(Gargle! Chomp! Sputter!)
The mob parted to make room for Double-Mouth's twisting, jerking struggle with herself - and then someone pushed her over the edge. Two screams came when Double-Mouth fell down the canyon - a high, and a low one.
(Death A Capella!)
Claw was speechless; it was too much to lose a son and a wife in such a short time. One of his remaining wives stepped forward.
([Female voice] "I'm next!")
Though shaken, the woman managed to speak: "Listen, everyone. Darc is our friend. He is unlike other outsiders. We have all heard him - does he hate us like Double-Mouth did?
(Yes!)
No! He is about to save us! I say he must be a reincarnation of Vis, the Singing King! And just as his life was threatened, a messenger from the sky came to protect him! I see the signs, and I believe."
("In Halo 3.")
"Hurry! What are you waiting for?" she whispered.
("My overtime pay.")
But he halted, with one foot on the dark escape path.
"No," he said. "I won't run away. We're going back. Can't you hear them? They need me!"
("Like a junkie needs a dealer!")
A line of red laser light flickered momentarily from the sky and hit the opposite canyon wall with a crack. Dohan had, in pure frustration, fired a warning shot.
(Dohan often annoyed people in cinemas by pointing his laser at the screen.)
Everyone could hear him shouting hoarsely from above: "Darc!! If you do not answer, I fly down with the craft and shoot those Lepers to pieces!"
("Nyah nyah!")
DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
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