Phthor by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

its face was a huge facade intended to frighten potential prey toward the tail. There was little defense against a caterpillar except avoidance, as with other chthonic menaces. But it could readily be avoided with suitable foresight. On occasion Arlo had scrambled over a caterpillar’s mid-portion, since only the tail could attack.
    Then the other meaning of Aton’s words penetrated. “Bedside was incorporated? But he’s alive!”
    “That took you a while, son,” Aton said with a brief laugh. “Bedeker is only half-alive. He’s a creature of Chthon, a mad doctor, a golem, an animated stick. A good doctor, though, especially with Chthon’s assistance. You should have gone to him for help first.”
    “I couldn’t. Chthon wants the girl dead.”
    “I thought as much,” Aton said. “Chthon wasn’t in on this particular scheme, it seems. You’re beginning to appreciate that the god of the caverns is not necessarily beneficent.’’
    “Yes!” It had been a hard lesson, as most cavern lessons were. Yet Arlo realized that his father was pleased. Aton hated Chthon—yet he stayed here in Chthon’s demesne, and Chthon tolerated him. Why? Arlo dared not ask—yet.
    “An ordinary man would have been lost,” Aton continued after a moment. “But Bedeker belongs to Chthon, and Chthon controls all life in the caverns. Except the three of us. The human mind is too complex to control without an enormous special effort.”
    “The myxo!” Arlo cried.
    “Right. And those of us with minion blood are capable of resisting the myxo, so that if Chthon prevails, the result is not a controlled human mind but a zombie. So it isn’t worth it. Still, the mineral intellect has ways of making its point. Chthon could have stopped the caterpillar—but maybe it wanted to teach us a lesson.” He always referred to Chthon as “it,” signaling his smoldering antipathy. “So it let Bedeker get caught. I escaped—only because Chthon let me—but for a week Bedeker marched in the caterpillar. Several more segments were incorporated behind him. I thought I’d never see him again, and I wasn’t sorry.”
    Aton shook his head, his dark hair waving with the motion. “Until that episode, I never really appreciated Chthon’s full power. Maybe I still don’t. Well, Chthon showed me! A predator attacked that caterpillar—some huge wolflike thing—and—”
    “Wolf!” Arlo cried. But he shut up as his father paused. He wanted to hear the rest of the episode.
    “The wolf severed it just in front of Bedeker. The main caterpillar escaped, but Bedeker survived as an independent segment. He wasn’t a real caterpillar; he couldn’t use his tail to incorporate new segments. He was just a ten-legged fragment walking around. But now he had control. Maybe it was really Chthon-control; I’m sure I would have died in that situation. But in due course the predator attacked again, this time cutting off the last four segments. And still Bedeker lived. He returned almost to normal—it’s hard to tell, since he is half mad, half Chthon anyway—while the remainder of his former body carried on by itself. Again, no death. The new head assumed control and started eating. Those last segments had been pretty strong, so the thing was stupid but powerful. Bedeker gave it to me to take care of, and he named it Sleipnir, after the eight-legged horse of Norse mythology.. You’ll find that in LOE.”
    Aton fell silent, and Arlo asked no more questions. The story was incredible—yet he had to believe it. Chthon did have such power, and Doc Bedside did have huge scars on his body whose significance suddenly manifested. But how amazing, for the old mad doctor had almost literally birthed this fine cavern horse—a four-segment caterpillar fragment! Where else could such a thing have happened?
    They entered the gardens. Aton looked around with interest, blinking in the unaccustomed yellow light, for he had not had opportunity to inspect this region before.