The Barsoom Project

The bizarrely twisted spires of the Cabal’s stronghold rose around them, ice sculptures that were a twisted wonderland of disturbing angles and facets.

Hippogryph bent over them, concern in his round, flat face. “Is there anything I can do?”

Max sighed. “I think she’s going to be all right. I think we’ve just got a certain amount of exhaustion here. It’s been a hard couple of days.”

“Just another few hours… ” Hippogryph said, but he must have been wondering if she could hold together that long.

Charlene Dula slid in next to them, and her long, long arms went around Eviane’s trembling shoulders. “Why don’t you go on for a while, and let us girls have some privacy?”

“You’ve got it.”

Max crept around the side of the ice wall, and looked down at the shambling Amartoq. It paced as if keeping guard.

“Can’t we just go around it?” he whispered to Snow Goose.

“I doubt it’s alone. This is the stronghold of the Cabal. It’s mobile. They must keep it moving around the Arctic Circle-”

Johnny Welsh was suddenly behind them, his voice, for once, completely serious. “What for? Ah-they’re racking up traveling points! The further something magical travels…”

“That must be it.”

Hebert hefted his rifle. “We’ve got all of this wonderful Falling Angels gear. Aren’t we powerful enough to just take them?”

Snow Goose shook her head. “We have powerful artifacts more powerful than theirs. But they have the knowledge. if we go blundering in there, they could take our talismans from us and become twice the threat.”

“What can we do?”

Snow Goose slid down and sat on the ice. Her eyes scanned the misted horizon. “One last ceremony. One final spell. We must work the magic of our talismans, and call for their strength.”

Max drew his collar up tighter around his ears. “Goddamn it’s cold!”

“Yes,” Snow Goose said. “Ahk-lut may have misjudged. We don’t have much time.”

She gathered them around in a circle. “We have been through much together. We have slain beasts and overcome fears, have walked through the land of the dead. We have much more power now than we did at the beginning of our trek. But our task now is the greatest of all. I’ve got to tell you that Eviane is probably right-not all of us will survive. But we had to try. This is our time.”

Each Adventurer nodded or murmured assent, not exactly sure of what to think or expect, but willing to go along.

“We must pray-if Sedna has grown healthy enough, she may be able to help us.”

“Help us what?” Johnny Welsh asked.

“Although you have totems, and magical objects, you are still too European. We must complete your transformation.”

Again they sat in the sacred circle, this time buffeted by the wind. For a third time they smoked the sacred cigarettes.

Max wondered what the old tobacco companies would have made of this, back when you could display tobacco ads on a hundred million TV sets and never face a misdemeanor rap. What an advertising campaign! Smoke Camels! The cigarette that saved the world! Warning: The Surgeon General is known to be a member of the Cabal.

Once again the smoke rose up, ignoring the wind and the driving snow. The smoke puffs shaped a beautiful Eskimo woman without fingers. Sedna. Her hair was still unkempt, but there was more life to her now, and she smiled to them.

He “heard” the words, but not through his ears. There was a general buzzing all over his body. The very wind seemed to be modulated by the sound, so that the gusts of snow seemed almost to be talking.

“My children,” she said, and Max felt all gushy-warm at the sound of the words. “I know that you need me, and I am ready to give you what help I can.

“Look! Look to the sea! My creatures gladly give their lives that this evil may come to an end.”

Once again, the ice beneath their feet began to vibrate; but this was no quake. There was a drumbeat music to it, a rhythm that reminded Max of the music in the qasgiq. A rift formed in the ice not fifteen meters from where they stood.

A black ocean swelled beneath that shattered ice, an ocean tossed by strange powers, an ocean that rolled and screamed, its spray dissolving before the driving wind.

And out of the ocean crawled… a seal, but no ordinary seal. Its eyes were huge and black, and they were fixed on Orson. It humped across the land to him, shuddered and died as he reached to touch it. Its body deflated, muscle and bones dissolving like a melting ice sculpture.

Orson, frozen with his hand outstretched, completed the motion and picked up a flaccid sealskin.

Snow Goose said, “Put it on.”

Orson lifted the spotted brown skin and wrapped it around his shoulders. Immediately, his expression changed. “Ooo! It’s… it’s so warm..