Echoes of the Fourth Magic Read Online Free PDF

Mitchell and Corbin asked together.
    “Solid,” Thompson reiterated. “We’re in a giant cave. Back a couple hundred yards there’s a funnel going up into the ceiling—the light’s more intense there. I would have checked it out closer, to see if it opens up to the surface, but I couldn’t get near it; I kept getting shocks. Static, or something. I picked this guy up on the way back. I had to show you.”
    “How does the
Unicorn
look from out there?” asked Mitchell.
    “Bad,” Thompson replied. “Real bad, sir. There’s some holes midship, but that’s the least of it. She’s listing to port up here, but she’s listing to starboard in back.”
    “Impossible!” Reinheiser argued.
    “The middle of the ship got twisted,” Thompson continued earnestly, putting his clenched fists one on top of the other and turning them in opposite directions. “I’dfigure at least a thirty-degree discrepancy between the two ends.”
    “It’s a miracle we’re alive,” Reinheiser said.
    Mitchell didn’t hear him. He just stared blankly ahead, dismayed by the now indisputable fact that his ship was gone beyond hope of repair.
    But the brutal damage report didn’t daunt the others. Something very strange was going on and they were intrigued, especially Martin Reinheiser. At this point, at least, curiosity outweighed worry.
    “I’ve got to get out there,” Reinheiser begged Mitchell, his voice almost a whine.
    “I’d like to get back out, too, sir,” Thompson added. “I want a closer look at our damage.”
    “And I want to get at those books in my cabin,” Del said, refusing to be left out of the excitement.
    “No, you don’t,” Doc Brady cut in, still examining the corpse. “Thompson will get them for you. You’re staying here and getting healthy!” Del would have argued, but Mitchell’s outburst stopped him short.
    “Do what you want!” the captain bellowed, his face contorted into an angry scowl. It was Mitchell’s turn to feel the hopelessness, to believe that nothing he did in this situation could make any difference. He knew the gloom would pass. The violence within him had been able to push all his hurts away since he was a child, but for now he just had to get away from the others. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.
    The others blankly watched him go, confused by the solid captain’s sudden despair.
    “He’s lost his ship,” Reinheiser observed, studying the tenseness of the departing captain’s stride, logging this newest revelation of Mitchell’s disposition.
    “Help me get this body to the conference room,” Brady told Del, whose face drooped in disappointment. “All right,” Brady conceded. “Maybe I’ll let you go for a dive later.”
    Del smiled. “Let me tell Thompson where the books are.” He bounded across the room, mesmerized by the potential adventure that awaited him outside the
Unicorn
, able to forget, for just a while, the carnage around him—and the inevitability of his own impending doom.

Chapter 3

To the Tick of a Different Clock
    “W HAT DID YOU bring that for?” Mitchell grumbled.
    Reinheiser glared at him from across the table. “From the
Wasp,”
he explained, holding up the untarnished belt buckle for the rest of the men to see and pointing to the upper-left-hand corner, which clearly showed the initials JB.
    With that, the physicist pointedly turned away from Mitchell. “I took this from the ship’s captain, judging from the cadaver’s uniform,” he said. “If we can find any records of the
Wasp
, it might prove useful.”
    “Always thinking, aren’t you?” Mitchell remarked.
    Reinheiser ignored the comment, unsure whether he had been insulted or complimented. “I also positioned a microphone under the break in the cavern ceiling. The funnel narrows considerably, but remains, I believe, large enough to admit the sub. The black area at its top seems similar to the one we were observing before the storm hit.”
    “You’re assuming