False Horizon - Alex Archer [38]
“Is that what I think it is?”
Tuk’s voice from behind her snapped her back to the moment. “I believe so,” she said.
“I’ve lived in Nepal my entire life and the one thing I never expected to see was what now stands before us.” Tuk’s voice became a whisper. “They haven’t moved. Do you think they mean us harm?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Tuk,” Annja said. But she didn’t sense that they were waiting to attack. They could have already done that by sneaking up on them in the back of the cave.
They seemed to be watching Annja and Tuk.
Almost as if they were waiting for something.
Tuk sneezed.
Annja inhaled another breath of the perfume and found her concentration wavering. Her grip on the sword seemed to be ebbing.
The perfume—
“Tuk, try not to breathe,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“The perfume we smell is a gas. They’re waiting for us to be knocked out by it before they do anything.”
Tuk had no response. Annja kept her eyes on the yeti in front of her. “Tuk?”
She glanced back and saw that Tuk had simply slipped down to the ground and he appeared to be having a pleasant dream on the stone floor of the cave. Annja whipped her head back around.
The yeti were closer.
When had they moved? Annja brandished the sword. “Stay back!” But even as she did so, she felt her head start to swim again. Breathing was difficult now as she tried to force back the effects of the perfumed gas.
It was virtually impossible to do so. The sword, which had energized her before, now seemed to be waning in power itself. Annja’s limbs felt heavy and droopy. The sword was growing heavier by the second. She wanted to drop the blade or at least return it to the otherwhere.
And Tuk looked so comfortable sleeping there on the floor. Why couldn’t she take a few minutes to do the same?
Annja felt powerless. She looked at the yeti.
They’d advanced again without making a sound.
How was that possible?
Annja’s vision swam and the walls of the cave seemed to turn into liquid. Tears ran from her eyes and then she had the distinct sensation of slipping and falling over a tall cliff toward a pillowy soft ground somewhere far below.
She heard a distant noise, like metal clanging on a rock. Her hands felt light. She drifted, floating, falling, spinning toward the darkness.
And she welcomed it.
ANNJA DRIFTED THROUGH a maze of dreams. Faces she hadn’t seen in years swept past her. Some of these she spoke to and had strange conversations with. Then they, too, would pass on and Annja would see another face.
She flew over lands she’d visited before on other adventures. From the vast expanses of deserts to the freezing landscapes of both the far north and Antarctica, it seemed almost that Annja was playing out her entire life in one big flashback.
Throughout the entire experience, she could still smell that perfume. But it didn’t annoy her any longer. Now she just accepted it, and when she did, she felt no more pain in her body. Her ribs didn’t ache. Her head seemed clear. She slept.
THE FIRST THING Annja noticed was the lack of the perfume smell. It had somehow vanished and she’d been far too exhausted to notice. But as her body returned from whatever dreamworld she’d lived in for several hours, it was now her main focus.
Her consciousness hauled her back up to a waking state, despite Annja’s wish to remain asleep.
Reluctantly, Annja opened her eyes.
She was not in the cave.
A pair of eyes stared at her.
She rolled over, coming awake very fast. “Tuk?”
He smiled at her. “Good morning.” He frowned. “Well, perhaps not. I’m not sure what time it is. I can only estimate that it might be morning. But who knows?”
Annja wiped the sleep from her eyes. “You seem to be in a good mood.” Annja sat up and looked around. They were on large pillows embroidered with strange designs.
“Where are we?”
Tuk shook his head. “Of that, I