. . . Disorientation . . .
. . . the private world of private symbols . . .
. . . intensely personal shorthand, to be learned, quickly before the dream destroyed him . . .
Strange coped. His mind, quick and analytical, sorted out the swirl of colors and shapes. The dream took shape, like a lens twisting into focus.
Clouds . . . sky . . . cool dry air . . . the hint of green earth far below . . . speed . . . Moving through the thunderheads, past the mountainous gray-white masses, between tenuous walls, through dark passes, over sunlit plains, to—
—to?
. . . to?
The goal seemed vague, unfocused . . . No, hidden, uncertain, distant . . .
The wind stirred the thickening clouds, moving the wet masses up and around, sculpting them, and still Strange flew through the mind dream toward—
—toward?
. . . toward?
The wind drew a curtain of gray mist across the path he was taking and Strange arrowed on, his astral body rocketing through the cooling atmosphere. The gray wall of cloud loomed over him, a mile high, miles wide, light enough to float, strong enough to carry uncounted tons of water high into the air.
Strange entered the cloud confidently. He expected the sunlight to appear almost at once. He had skimmed through earlier veils of mist and emerged into the bright clear light, but this cloud seemed endless. He had misjudged the thickness. He willed his astral body up. He would rise above it, still aiming toward that distant, unseen goal, only . . .
. . . only . . .
. . . only there was no end, no bursting into light, merely a thickening, a darkening.
It grew cold. There was no up, no down, no gravity—no . . . anything. Suddenly, Stephen Strange realized he was not feeling. He was in his astral body, yet that body had the capability of feeling its environment, and he felt nothing.
“By the omnipotent Oshtur!” He willed himself to stop and felt that he did—but he was not certain. He willed his body to rise, fleeing upward toward the light.
Only there was no light, and it was colder, darker, and the very air seemed thicker. If fact, he realized, the gray mist in which he flew actually was thickening. His passage seemed to be slower, but his physical feelings even less noticable. The focus of his mind and eyes seemed to fixate. He seemed to be soaring through a gray tunnel with more gray at the end.
“By the eternal Vishanti!” he roared—and realized he had not heard his voice, only thought he had because he had spoken. “May the Shields of the Seraphim protect me!” he exclaimed, making the gestures of ritual precision. Glowing dots formed in the air around him, haloed by the mist, and the dots grew into glowing discs. The shimmering discs floated above and below and to every side, seven shining protectors.
But nothing launched itself out of the mist at him. The cold increased—he sensed this rather than felt it—and the light was leeched away bit by bit. Billie Joe Jacks’s dream was a trap!
“Back!”
Dr, Strange twisted in the air, making the glowing shields vanish with a gesture, and he shot back through the mist toward the point where he had entered Jacks’s dreamland.
Only he was wrong.
He traveled the distance through grayness as thick as mush and did not find the exit—could not find the exit.
“This dreamland is without a compass,” he grumbled. He found it harder to breathe and that momentarily confused him. In his astral body he could sail through the vastness of the void, through minds and unknown dimensions, through the very rock of the planet itself—there was no need to breathe. But he was feeling a shortness of breath. It was, in fact, almost the only thing he felt.
“By the vapors of Valtorr!” he exploded. His hand traced a line of cold fire in the sky, slicing through the mist like a giant’s sword. He carved himself a passage toward the light. But the mist closed in around him, blinding him, filling in the wound as water does after the blade of the paddle.
He stopped and thrust out his arms to the side, pressing out a mighty psychic weight. “Circle of Shangtor, I command you! Appear!”
A radiance grew from his forehead, spreading into a sphere and pressed out to his fingertips. Within it, Stephen Strange was bathed in light. He could see and breathe and feel.
It was then the demons struck.
Lightning splashed off his shimmering sphere of golden light. A sharp-winged bat shape slanted by, screaming hoarsely. Another followed, screeching wildly, and a second jagged bolt of electricity caromed off his protective shield. A third shape zoomed by, sprinkling droplets of liquid fire. They struck his sphere of light like coals and ran down the sides to drip into the mist and be lost.
A shadow loomed up in the gray mists, a black shadow, its origin unseen, but monstrous and hulking. A long-fingered hand rose and lightning cracked, making sharp shadows on the clouds. The electricity struck and Strange’s golden sphere rippled with scarlet, then purple, then ragged black streaks. The golden sphere of light vanished.
“By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!” Strange exclaimed in surprise. His golden sphere was a new protective spell, tested and defeated on its first serious conflict.
Against the mountain of mist, Strange saw the shadowy figure raise its long arm again. He wasted no time. His own hand flew up, fingers spread.
“Cassorak! Spin your web of silver steel!”
A cold blue flame exploded from his palms, spreading out through the grayness, joining and rejoining in a melded web of gleaming silver bands. Around the edges of the web it crossed and recrossed itself, weaving a still larger network.
The figure in the clouds launched still another blast of sheer energy against Strange. The flashing strokes of power met and exploded among the silver bands. Sparks flew, the light was blinding, the colors running through the spectrum from intense yellow to fiery red to quivering purple, then back again.
Strange’s bands of silver steel were twisted and black, bent and tarnished beyond saving. He swept them aside with a word and raised both hands.
“Reveal yourself, you who would strike from ambush!”
Only the wind answered his cry.
The gray clouds closed in again. Dr. Strange turned in the air. “May the dead Dormammu defend me! Begone, this stifling cloak of numbness!”
The length of his blue-clad body crackled with fiery sparks, running up and down his lean frame like ants on an overturned hill. Then with a rush, feeling returned to Strange’s flesh. Once again he felt the cold air, the whip of wind twisting his crimson cloak, smelled the dry ozone of the aerial heights, and he sucked in the chill air with gratitude.
But the Sorcerer Supreme had no time to digest the confusion of the dreamland in which he hovered. A lightning bolt, shimmeringly golden, struck at him. The canyons of drifting grayness were illuminated as if a giant strobe had gone off, and Strange was hurtled into the grayness by the great pointed spear of energy.
Pain suffused his body, crackling off his fingertips as he tumbled without dignity through the cold wet clouds. Gasping with pain, he drew himself up. “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!” he exclaimed. “That was a mighty blow—one only a sorcerer of immense power could summon!”
Strange swam upward through the blinding clouds, aiming back toward the target zone, willing himself through space. His astral body had received a powerful blow, one that would have shattered mortal flesh into disparate atoms gleaming with psychic florescence in the void. In this dreamland of Billie Joe Jacks, Strange realized he could be hurt. And if his astral body were hurt—destroyed—there would be no Stephen Strange. His mortal flesh would go on for a time, waiting . . . Then it would swiftly decompose.
He could be killed here, in the mind of the evangelist, just as certainly as in the reality of Earth. Still, he bored through the clouds, his senses telling him there was something lurking beyond the mist.
He was ready when the second lightning bolt flashed. As swift as the great electrical charge was, Strange was faster. The Shields of the Seraphim winked into being and the bolt dispersed its massive energy off their protective ring.
“By the eternal Vishanti—show yourself!”
Blue sparks crackled from his fingertips and the clouds melted back before him. Standing ankle deep in foaming mist was a powerfully built black man, his expression scowling and angry. His fists were up, cocked, ready to strike out. In place of the traditional padded gloves were gleaming metal coverings, studded with razor-sharp points that would tear flesh from bone. The fighter wore gray trunks with a black stripe and advanced toward Strange in the fast one-two step of the accomplished professional.
Strange frowned in puzzlement. A prizefighter had been perhaps the last person he expected to see beyond the clouds. Was this some manifestation of a mad mind?
Still some distance away, the fighter’s left jabbed out and a blue flash coming from it momentarily blinded Strange. Then the right fist struck out and another great blinding bolt of electricity lanced forth. Strange was hurt; his flesh seemed afire as he plummeted down. But he caught himself and rose swiftly to the level of the attacking prizefighter.
“By the mighty Arambula, I command you to reveal your name!”
The fighter jabbed, but the blue flash was only light, not a powerful striking force. The black man seemed torn with hatred and the words came reluctantly. “Joe . . . Joe Peerson . . .”
The name triggered a memory within Strange. A fighter all right, a contender; someone known and becoming powerful—like Billie Joe Jacks.
“May the crimson bands of Cyttorak bind you now!” Red bands popped into existence, surrounding Peerson, sinking into the clouds below and extending upward into the swirling mist. They could be seen, faintly, faded into the grayness above and below. Peerson struck at them with his mailed fists, but the columns were like steel and he staggered back, holding his injured hands.
“May you stay imprisoned until the dream of Billie Joe Jacks ceases to exist!”
Peerson moaned and stepped forward, his pugilistic nature gone, replaced by a genuine fear. “No! Strange, this dream is not Jacks’s but—” He looked around, fearfully. “This is dreamland, man, don’t you understand that? Nobody’s dream, but—everyone’s dream!”
Strange frowned. “A dimension of dreams?”
“Yeah, yeah, you get it. Hey, look, man, if I’m imprisoned here till it stops, hey, I’m here forever!”
“Go, then, to the land of the undreaming!” He gestured and Joe Peerson disappeared. Then as the crimson columns faded, Strange was struck in the back by a blast of coruscating fire.
Strange cried out in pain, but the spells woven into the very molecules of his cloak saved him. Even in astral projection, these spells were valid. He whirled, his body once again flooded with almost unbearable pain.
The wall of grayness extended upward as far as the eye could see, pocked with bits of darkness, marred with shadowed clefts, each of which could hold an enemy. “By the sculpting claws of Cappello! Let the clouds begone!”
The cliff wall of mist swirled and dissipated, moving off to join up with nearby mountains of clouds. What was left was a man, clad in black, holding a weapon of some sort. It was long and silvered, glittering in the shadowless light, the tip of it glowing with a cold fire. The man raised the weapon to his shoulder and aimed it.
“Eternal Ito! Protect me!” A shimmering veil of rainbow light swept across space between Strange and the marksman just as the glittering weapon fired. A ball of searing flame arced across from the weapon to Strange’s protective veil. The flame rainbowed off the veil, and before it dissipated, the marksman fired again.
“Rings of Raggador!” Strange cried out. The veil of rainbow light curved out at the edges, surrounding the marksman, encasing him in a fiery ring of light. The light shrank to a dot and winked out of existence. The marksman was gone.
at
Seduction of the Innocent
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