could think again now that he was away from the cold wind and menacing stars. His first thought was about the oddity that was the adoption of human technology by the Yeti. The Jungle Book (Disney, not Kipling) came to mind. “Man’s red fire,” mumbled Alexander through wind burned lips.
It wasn’t long until the Yetis fell asleep. Alexander whistled a quick three note tune and waited. A quiet rustling came from the pile of clothing where they had kept Alexander’s coat and shirt. An almost imperceptible click-clacking skittered across the floor to the rear of the cave. Two pinpricks of light atop a tiny clockwork robot head looked up at Alexander and blinked by shutting its eye lights on and off.
The robot was a stylized humanoid wrought from brass and iron complete with a tiny metal mustache, monocle, and top hat. Its robot feet had built-in spats. It moved with grace far beyond what its machine body should have allowed. The technomagic involved in building the creature was some of the most advanced Alexander had ever accomplished. Its name was Sir Waldron Pettigrew Steeplechase II. The first two robots of his line had met with unfortunate yet heroic ends, and Sir Waldron was ready to follow his predecessors into tiny robot glory.
“Get up here and help me get out of these chains, please,” whispered Alexander to the tiny robot. The robot gave a grand bow, tipping a tiny metal top hat to his chained master. Alexander always made room for courtesy when programming his robots, and returned the politeness in kind. He figured it may someday save his life on the inevitable day one of his creations would turn on him.
Alexander held out his wrists, bound in heavy antimagic manacles that covered his hands from elbow to fingertip. The tiny mechanical gentlemen looked over them, gears turning in his clockwork mind. He then held out a fingertip which opened to reveal a small green jewel. He waved it back and forth over the manacles. Superfluous science fiction noises creating telekinetic vibrations that were unhooking the complex series of locks inside the manacles. Alexander’s BBC America addiction was paying dividends in spades.
A few moments later an audible click echoed in the cave. Alexander froze, waiting for one of the guards to wake up. After a tense minute no one stirred. He pulled off the manacles and slid them to the floor making sure to keep from making any noise. He waited another minute. Then he reached up and unhooked his head and neck from the remainder of his bindings. Sliding the last of the thick steel chains on the floor, he put Sir Waldron in his pocket and began to creep along the edge of the cave.
The mind controlled captives were oblivious to anything. He was grateful for that. They were going to have enough to cope with when this was over. Even the armed guards slept. Alexander could smell them, dirty and unkempt. His superhuman sense of smell could pick up the scent of neglect on a deeper level than their lack of hygiene. The Yetis rode their slaves hard and put them away wet.
He gathered his shirt and coat from the pile of gear that the guards carried from their entrance point to the strange plateau. Alexander took nothing but his own equipment. He was always prepared for odd twists of fate. In his case odd twists of fate often called for ray guns and high explosives.
Alexander slipped into the cold unforgiving night. Snow had begun to blow, accumulating in icy drifts along the smooth rock face. He reached into one of his deep inner coat pockets and pulled out a pair of brass goggles and put them on. The goggles highlighted the night in hues of blue and green. Augmented reality overlays displayed information at the corners of his perception. A shallow telepathic link connected him to the computer system that was built into the structure of the goggles. Even with augmented vision visibility was no more than thirty feet.
A rare rock outcropping in the otherwise flat plateau gave Alexander a vantage point to watch the cave. It would have been more comfortable in chains, he thought as the supernatural wind blew cold air into places where he would prefer it not be. Starlight somehow managed to shine through the storm. Alexander used one of the few spells he knew to block out the worst of the psychic crazy spam being pumped at him from the bleak stars of the outer dark.
He pondered where they were as he crouched watching the cave. The tangible psychic presence of the starlight meant they were at least part way into the spirit world. The cold, mountains, and the Sanskrit speaking Yetis narrowed it down further to one probable place-The Plateau of Leng. It wasn’t the worst place Alexander had ever been. Holding a high point on his list of places he disliked wasn’t any great honor.
The Plateau of Leng was one of the places that reality hung like cheap curtains, bunched up and wrinkled. Nasty things used it as a foothold to gain access to normal reality. Other things, forgotten remnants of civilizations best left lost, such as the hairy, stinky, and oddly tech savvy Yetis, used it to hang onto the remnants of their former glory.
Snow began to blow harder. What started as a mild blizzard soon evolved into a full whiteout. Alexander wished that he could travel to dangerous and exotic places that were at the very least temperate, if not warm. He didn’t wish too loud. Above all he wanted to go home. He had to prep for several holiday dinners. The Vets at the VFW would track him down if he didn’t bring his minced meat pie to their annual Christmas dinner.
A jab to his side pulled Alexander out of his reverie. Sir Waldron, now donning a tiny greatcoat and hand-woven silk scarf, had poked him in his ribs with a sharp finger.
“Sir, it seems that the stars and storm have managed to enchant you, however briefly,” said the robot Sir Waldron via a two way telepathic radio transmitter.
“What?” said Alexander, focusing his eyes? His thoughts had been on feasting, not on watching the cave to follow the group to their stronghold.
“The storm, it seems, has amplified the psychic effects of this dreadful place,” said Sir Waldron, moving himself to Alexander’s breast pocket.
Whiteout conditions cut visibility to almost nothing. A wide band visual spectrum disruption kept Alexander’s goggles from piercing the veil of snow. All scent of the cave was gone.
“Sir, may I suggest that you find cover? Even you shall freeze soon in this maelstrom,” suggested Sir Waldron. He tucked himself further into Alexander’s pocket and wrapped himself with the greatcoat.
Taking the small robot’s advice, Alexander began moving toward the cave. He would disarm the guards and dispatch the Yetis, even if that wasn’t the best of plans. The civilians wouldn’t be able to last out on the Plateau, but he would figure out a plan when the time came.
After about forty yards of walking toward the cave, Alexander knew he was in trouble. He had navigated storms on foot from the Sahara to the Antarctic, always managing to muddle through. But here was a different story. The storm and land were living and hostile, and fully intended to strip the flesh from his bones.
He tried to return to the rock outcropping with no success. The temperature had dropped far below zero. Ambient temperatures were starting to make their way past the plausible into the downright ridiculous range. Alexander was starting to freeze. The temperature was well below negative one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and falling. Snow continued to fall and accumulate, happily ignoring physics.
Alexander could handle the cold-he had even survived being thrown into space once unprotected, for several minutes. He was in the hospital for a week afterward, but he survived. His current situation made him wonder if he might get to see how cold it would actually have to be to kill him. He set a note on his Augmented Reality gear in his goggles, which was designed to handle extremes of temperature and pressure past what Alexander was known to be able to take, to record the temperature outside if he died. If he was going to die it would at least be for science.
Vibrations rippled through the snow at Alexander’s feet. He thought it might be his brain starting to freeze, but it happened again. Thumping, grunting, snuffling sounds soon accompanied the vibrations. His goggles picked up a shape lurching toward him in the snow. The goggles painted a green outline over what looked like a giant caterpillar. Alexander was unfazed by the approaching monster. H
e was almost relieved to do something other than freeze to death.
The caterpillar was visible to the naked eye at this point. It was translucent. Simple digestive organs were visible through several feet of clear flesh. It had to weigh at least six tons. It tossed its bulk along in heaving thrusts toward Alexander. A primitive basso hunting cry echoed across the frozen plain as it lurched toward what it though would be its next meal.
Alexander reached into his coat and pulled a slender metal tube about the same size as an expensive pen, clicked the top, and threw it at the creature. The metal cylinder lodged into the worm’s gullet and exploded. The thick clear flesh vibrated with the force of the blast, but contained most of it. Smoke curled out of its mouth. It slumped over and began to leak fluid onto the ground.
Several other hunting cries issued from beyond the whiteout. Blasts of wind prevented Alexander from tracking them. He only had two more pen grenades with him, and his goggles were telling him that there were six distinct calls closing in from all sides.
He pulled his other grenades and threw them toward the incoming worms. Both missed their targets and struck the snow covered ground around the hungry monsters. The combined blast sent a