Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Cara already had his right hand in an iron grip, but Nicci gripped his left hand even more tightly. He could tell in that urgent squeeze that she sensed something as well. He wished that he could ask her what she felt, but talking within the sliph was not possible.

Richard opened his eyes wider, trying to see more of what was around him, but it was a muted, murky world where there was little to be seen, other than the shimmering shafts of light — yellow, red, blue — piercing the gloom through which they raced. Richard didn't think that those shafts of light were moving as they once had been. It was hard to tell such things for sure within the sliph, though. It was generally a hazy sense of events, rather than actual perception.

There was something out ahead of him, Richard realized, something maneuvering fluidly through the silver obscurity. At first it looked like long, slender petals just beginning to blossom open. As it came closer, Richard saw that it looked more like numerous arms — tapered, long, undulating objects — fanning open from a central element that for some reason he could not quite figure out.

It was disorienting to watch because it was so incomprehensible. As it came ever closer, it began to appear to Richard as if whatever it was was made up of segments of glass, all assembled into something orderly, something billowing open before him. He could see through the transparent, expanding arms, see the shafts of color and light shimmering beyond.

It was the oddest thing he had ever seen. As hard as he tried, he simply could not make sense of it. It was like it was there, but not there.

And then, with icy dread, comprehension washed through him.

At the same time, Nicci pulled his hand so hard that it nearly wrenched his arm right out of its socket. The yank must have pulled him back, because Cara, still holding his other hand, sailed around him as if falling through midair. Richard ducked. The translucent shape whipped past his face, just missing him.

Nicci had pulled him back just in time.

Richard knew now what it was.

It was the beast.

The sense of being in the presence of evil was suddenly so strong that it engulfed him with suffocating panic. As the beast, like some temporal vision, skimmed past him, it twisted around. The glassy arms fanned open as they reached out and again tried to snatch him.

With a sharp tug Nicci again drew him back from the star-shaped net of tentacles spread wide before him. Again they tried to close around him.

Richard pulled his hand away from Cara's and drew his knife. With her how free hand, she immediately snatched a fistful of his shirt to hold on to him.

Richard did his best to slash at the ever-reaching arms trying to embrace him in their deadly grasp. It didn't take long to realize that fighting with a knife within the sliph was close to impossible. It was too fluid an environment for Richard to be able to strike with any speed. It was like trying to maneuver in honey. He changed his tactics and instead waited for the arms to draw in around him, waited for whatever was at the glassy center to come to him.

When they did, he drove the blade toward that aware center of the translucent threat. Rather than be impaled on the blade, though, the creature only seemed to fold around Richard's knife and twist effortlessly away.

And then it again came in to attack, now with a kind of abrupt, intent fury that Richard could sense. The thing moved with a fluid grace that didn't seem to be hindered at all by the fluid world surrounding them.

To one side Richard saw the shimmering shape of Cara, still gripping his shirt as she tried to attack the beast with her free hand. To the other side, he knew, Nicci was trying to work magic. It didn't seem that her magic was working in the environment of the sliph.

One of the beast's arms coiled around Richard's arm, another lashed around Cara's. She seized his wrist with her other hand. The beast fastened onto her other arm as well and effortlessly ripped the two of them apart. In an instant, Cara was gone. In the murky darkness Richard couldn't tell where she was, or how close she might be. Worse, he didn't know if she was all right, or if the creature had her.

Nicci tightened her arm protectively around Richard's waist, holding on for dear life, as more of the undulating, transparent arms came out of the gloom and coiled around them. It was like getting tangled in a nest of snakes, all entwining themselves and constricting with great force once attached. The one around Richard's leg drew so tight that he thought it would surely rip his flesh from the bone.

Even though Richard could not hear Nicci in the conventional sense, he could perceive her muffled cries of fury as she fought the thing that had snared them. An odd, muted form of lightning flickered madly around Nicci. Richard knew she was trying to use her power, but it wasn't having any effect on the beast.