Ascending - James Alan Gardner [30]
“Ooo, aren’t you the smarty-pants!” said the voice. “Except for the pants. Doesn’t your backside get breezy?”
I looked around. There was no sign of anyone else in the bubbly volcanic landscape—nothing but the garden and the lava, plus some peaky black mountains on the farthest horizon. The sky was empty too: an ashy maroon with no clouds or stars. “Are you hiding, Mr. Asshole?” I called. “Or are you preparing an extravagant entrance you think will impress me?”
“Bright girl,” the voice chuckled. “You’re obviously miles ahead of my feeble brain.”
With a surging explosion of smoke, something erupted from the depths of the closest lava pool. It was big and white, with fizzing droplets of molten rock running off its hide. Where the drips spilled onto the blood-red flowers, the plants sprouted brand-new blossoms that appeared with a soft screaming sound. The screams were an excellent touch—if one intends to simulate a volcanic garden, there is admirable showmanship in flowers that howl as they grow.
But the white thing continued to rise from the magma, as if it were standing on a submerged platform being lifted by an elevator mechanism. I could see now the beast was exceedingly leathery, the approximate size and pebbly texture of a rhinoceros.4 It had four massive legs and even a fuzzy tail tucked between the armorlike slabs of hide covering its haunches…but unlike a rhinoceros, this creature had no horn. It had no nose at all, and no eyes or mouth either, because the animal completely lacked a head—its neck simply stopped at the throat, where an open hole led back into the chest cavity.
As I watched, the headless creature leaned forward so the hole in its neck tilted downward. A thick gout of lava poured out of the gap, as if the beast were emptying unwanted fill-age that had flowed into the opening while submerged. “God, that itches,” the animal said in a gargly voice. It made a hawking sound in its throat the way a crude person does before spitting; then a wad of lava spurted out the neckhole and splashed back into the pool.
“That’s better,” it said in a much clearer tone. “How ’bout you? Not too intimidated by seeing the real me?”
“Why should I believe I am seeing the real you? Since this is just a projected image, you may look nothing like a headless rhinoceros. You could be something small and squishy, attempting to make yourself look more impressive.”
“If I wanted to make myself look impressive, I’d pick something better than a headless fucking rhino.” The beast stepped from the surface of the lava onto the solid ground of the garden; the flowers he tread upon gave high-pitched squeals and dragged themselves out of the way, ripping their roots from the soil and replanting themselves at a safe distance. I stared at them…and the beast noticed me looking. He glanced at the fleeing plants, then up at me. “Too much?”
“Yes. You are trying too hard to dazzle me.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Screw the special effects.”
He slopped across the garden toward me, now moving through the flowers as if they were not even there. They did not screech or pull away; they did not even quiver as his body passed through leaves and blossoms that were no more solid than smoke. Or perhaps it was the beast himself who had become insubstantial—large and white and unnatural, coming toward me like a decapitated ghost.
As the creature drew nearer, I got an unobstructed view of the gaping hole where his head should have been. The sky’s dim red light did not pierce far into the beast’s inner blackness; yet down his open throat, as deep as his heart and lungs, two crimson orbs glowed like the dying coals of a campfire. I suspected these were Baleful Burning Eyes, buried in the recesses of the creature’s body…but if so, it was a most foolish place to locate one’s sight, because one’s view would be greatly restricted by the sides