The Eidolon Read Free

ARE cold now that I’m lying still. It feels like my limbs are only vaguely attached to the rest of me, like they’ve all been to the dentist for a jag then left in the deep freeze. Even my guts feel cold, and my lungs when I breathe in, and my headache’s changed from thumping to that feeling you get when you bite into ice-cream. Brainfreeze. Maybe there’s a neural pathway connecting ice-cream to the lining of the brain. An ice-cream-neuron, waiting to be discovered. The shivering hurts, but at least it’s a sign that I’m still here.
    Sometime after that, I don’t know how long, I give in to sleep.
     
     
    I WAKE TO a sound. I hush my breathing, as much as I can in the thin air. The candle’s still yellow, it’s not sputtering, so we must be alive. So much for waking me in an hour. Danny’s lying, eyes closed, shivering. From the candlelight I can see his lips flubbering in a soft snore. What was that sound? The wind? Through the vent in the roof I can see it’s still dark.
    I check my watch. It takes a while to focus on the numbers and even longer to work out what they mean. 3.14.
    There it is again. Am I imagining it? It sounds like a voice. If the wind had a voice, it would sound like this, resonant and commanding. No, I was wrong; it’s not a voice, because there aren’t any words. So why do I know what it means?
    GET UP.
    God, Robert. You must be hypothermic. Voices in the head can’t be a good sign. A voice with no words. Like a thought, but coming from somewhere outside of me.
    GET UP NOW.
    I need to get up. Irrational or not, there’s no disputing it. I don’t know why but every fibre in me knows it’s right. From some reserve I didn’t know I had, I find the will. It takes over, becoming an urgency, an edge. I kick the wall of snow at my feet, toppling the candle and snuffing it out, then wriggle from the hole. It’s snowing again, the clouds inking out the stars.
    Something makes me turn, something over my right shoulder. A little higher up the mountain there’s something in the darkness, just visible through the blizzard. It’s insubstantial, like the shadow of steam on a wall, but something else is there. I rub my eyes, and when I look again, there’s nothing. But it feels like...
    Sudden certainty seizes me. I’ve got to get Danny out. I reach into the remains of the hole and grasp his ankles, tugging, dragging him into the open. “Wake up, Danny! Get up!”
    He mumbles, eyes still closed, and turns his face from the driving snow. “Danny!” I kneel over him and slap him hard across the cheek. “Come on, come on! Get up, dammit!”
    A low groaning sound issues from the mountain, as though something that lies beneath is awakening. Something enormous. We sink, suddenly a few inches lower, jolting downwards as though...
    “ Move!” I’m on my feet, grasping Danny by the hood. His feet flail under him as I try to pull him away, but he’s fighting me, trying to free himself from my grip. “What the hell are you...”
    The ground creaks and groans and shifts. The shelter breaks apart and disappears, leaving nothing but frozen gusts of air as we scramble back from the collapsing edge, kicking furiously, the ground crumbling and falling away in great chunks that tumble into emptiness. It gains on us, ripping at more of the mountain until it reaches the snow under Danny’s feet.
    He slides away from me, his arms flapping wildly, groping for a hold. I catch his hood again with one hand and with the other, grasp his wrist. The groaning stops and the ground steadies as he hangs there, suspended, the wind gusting up from below, teasing. A block of ice breaks away and bounces into the darkness and Danny’s gaze follows it as he sways from the precipice. He looks up at me and for a moment our eyes meet.
    “You know what I’d do,” he says.
    Should I? My arms are beginning to quiver. I can hold on for a bit, but then... I’m not sure how long until... what am I thinking? “No. Hold