Read Terrors for Free Online Page B

trail of swiftly dissipating fumes behindit.
    In that same moment, the creatures surrounding the throne whirled toward the source of the rosy illumination. In a deep recess of his lightning-fast brain, the Wizard concluded that these creatures had theability to see in near-total darkness. Their huge, bulging eyes, visible in the seconds before the flare faded to extinction, bespoke as much. In the darkness that followed, the Wizardcould hear their slithering progress as they advanced toward him.
    He withdrew several more of the miniature flares from their hiding place and hurled them toward the creatures, but this time instead of sending the flares in an arc that approached the dark ceiling overhead, the Wizard pitched them onto the concrete floor between himself and the semi-human creatures. Again rose-colored light flared,but this time it was many times as brilliant as it had been the first time.
    The creatures halted in their advance toward the Wizard. He saw them throw their arms before their eyes, blocking the bright illumination from their abnormally sensitive corneas. With a shock, the Wizard realized that the creatures had no hands in the human sense. Each of their limbs, instead, terminated in a writhingcluster of pallid tentacles. Their faces were a mockery of human features. The eyes were huge and bulging, the noses flattened and almost nonexistent, the mouths broad and lipless.
    When one of the creatures, clearly the leader, opened its broad mouth to issue commands to its followers, rows of razor-sharp triangular teeth glinted red. Unlike the other creatures in the band, this one appearedto be older and stronger. Where the heads of the others were smooth and rounded, the crown of the leader’s head was surrounded by a hideous ring of writhing tentacles the color of freshly-spilled blood.
    The sound that emerged from the creature’s mouth was a terrible batrachian hiss.
    In response to their leader’s command the creatures swarmed toward the Wizard. But the Wizard was ready for them.Already the flares were fading and he replenished the vital illumination by hurling a handful of the BB-sized pellets against the concrete. In a maneuver that no eye, human or batrachian, could have followed, the Wizard whirled, his shimmering cape spreading around him in a brilliant, blinding, sparkling disk.
    The monsters halted, confused, until their leader urged them onward with another ofits hideous hissing commands. But before the monsters, where the Crimson Wizard had stood mere moments before, there now appeared a pair, then a quartet, of scarlet-clad, shimmering figures. Then these divided again, and there were eight,sixteen, then thirty-two muscular, defiant Crimson Wizards.
    Had the marvel-man truly summoned multiple duplicates of himself? Had he a method of dividing hisphysical substance to create a brigade of sleek warriors?
    Or had he merely cast a glamour over his attackers, seizing control of their amphibious brains, creating the illusion that a single man had become an imposing throng of fierce opponents?
    At their leader’s hissing command, a contingent of the pallid monsters leaped forward, each of them engaging one of the multiple Crimson Wizards in mortalcombat. Battles ensued in parallel, monster against hero, tentacle against fist, blow exchanged for blow and grasp for grasp. In each case it was the Wizard who triumphed. One by one the white creatures backed away, yielding to the combative superiority of their scarlet-clad foes.
    Next the monsters formed a phalanx, rhythmically pounding slimy tentacles against their own bare, pallid bodies.A booming cadence like that of a hundred drummers filled the warehouse. At a signal the monsters began a steady, disciplined advance against the ranks of crimson-clad heroes.
    One of the Crimson Wizards moved his hands in a baffling gesture. There was a flash of lurid energy in the cavernous room and the ranks of red-costumed men doubled still again.
    Was this a real