As Charley Shrieve disappeared, she put Malmagden into the Web. Malmagden smiled. “I save your life, yet you still mistrust me to follow after you?” He shook his head. He was hurt.
“Humor me.”
“If you care nothing for my continued good will, then at least consider this: You send me through first, you will be truly and utterly alone. Have you thought what might happen if you run into difficulty?”
“Difficulty?” Susan had a sudden memory—the pressure of an unwholesome membrane against her flesh. She looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘difficulty’?”
Malmagden looked away awkwardly. “This transportation system developed by my colleague Herr Leder may be on the verge of collapse. Indeed, lately it has tried to kill me on more than one occasion.”
She wanted to play dumb, just to see what he’d say. Kill you? How? But there was no need. She could tell how—just by the way Malmagden hunched his shoulders together, the wary gaze he turned toward the walls.
Suddenly, all the roles they had enacted between themselves—wartime adversaries, host and guest, prisoner and guard—were collapsed into a single shared experience.
Malmagden smiled grimly. “You have been through the Web lately. You know what I am talking about.”
“I thought I must have done something wrong,” she admitted.
“You did nothing wrong.” Malmagden laughed uneasily. “You are alive. You are sane. I have associates who have not fared so well.”
Susan stared at the fluorescing lines across the floor. Charley had gone through.
Had he made it?
“What is it?” she asked him. “What’s in there?”
Malmagden pursed his lips. “That is hard to say. We in Zentralbund have used the spells of transformation since the early days of the war. Obviously, those entreaties went somewhere. Perhaps to Azathoth Himself? Who can say? I suppose we might have been more curious than we were, but there was a war on, you know. If Azathoth is in some way responsible for the Angle Web’s fortuitous geometry, I suspect our constant transit has gained His attention in some way we cannot fully understand.”
“He’s tired of people caging rides.”
Malmagden looked pained. “You anthropomorphize what can barely be conceived,” he said. “It is hardly your most endearing trait. I can only suggest we limit our use of the Web to the minimum. Maybe, if we survive long enough to see Kiel again, we will take the bus around town awhile, yes?”
If we survive . . . Susan felt a shiver go up her shoulders.
“One thing,” he pointed out. “Whether Azathoth is responsible for the recent difficulties or not, It will be close at hand when we step out. The presence of a body of three billion solar mass is going to warp space-time at the other end.”
“In English?”
Malmagden put up his hands. “There will be some scattering effect as each of us steps through. It is unlikely we will arrive together.”
“What are the chances we’ll arrive at all?”
Malmagden smiled. “Life is, how you say? A crap shoot?”
He made the signs, he spoke the words, he disappeared.
Chapter Nine
ENTERING THE ANGLE WEB WAS EASY the second time. Indeed, Susan was almost inhaled into the darkness.
It was leaving that was hard.
Whatever anonymity she’d enjoyed previously was gone now. A cloying fascination, verging on lust, pressed in around her mind. It cuddled her, probed for a way in. She felt the darkness close in around her, pliant and yet unyielding, like the fleshy walls of some vast capillary.
She focused her mind on the task of getting through. Speak the spells, she told herself. Make the signs.
She recited the words in her mind; the thought of opening her mouth in this hideous, half-living space was enough to make her retch.
The Angle Web realigned itself all around her. Somewhere in the distance ahead lay warmth, but maybe too far. She moved toward it, but the blackness resisted her. She turned her shoulder into it. Reluctantly, the gloom yielded to her. She had just enough time to feel relief. And then things turned hazy.
She remembered walking through the Angle Web. She remembered hitting something. The impact was fairly hard. She hadn’t smashed into the ground as she had expected, but she hadn’t floated off to some nice, easy afterlife either. She rubbed her shoulder as she thought about that impact, and her shoulder hurt bad enough she figured she couldn’t possibly be dead.
She looked about and found herself pressed against an expanse of rock. It wasn’t quite so sheer as a cliff, but sheer enough. Any sudden movements, her precarious grasp would begin to slip. She heard the sea. Directly below, waves licked a rocky shoreline.