BANDICUT

And something

help him. She drew an inner breath, and focused her thoughts. /JOHN BANDICUT! JOHN BANDICUT! CAN YOU HEAR ME, JOHN BANDICUT-UT-UT?/
Her voice echoed as if down a long, perfectly polished tunnel. There were no words in answer, but she felt a quiver of awareness. /JOHN BANDICUT, BEWARE DANGER-R-R! PROTECT YOURSEL-L-L-F!/
And as her words reverberated, the darkened figure of Bandicut stretched closer and closer to the rising shadow of the boojum.

* * *

Bandicut struggled to turn from the wave of darkness. There was a terrible ringing in his ears, and he felt something shift around him, like a momentary loosening of a band around his chest. He took a sharp breath—felt a moment of clarity—and heard a distant voice. He could hear only a fragment of what it was saying. . .
/—protect yourself!/
And then he caught the familiar scent—and wondered if it had been hiding there all along—the smell of madness. And he realized in horror what he had done. The wave of dark strength, the boojum, was wrapping itself around him, pulling him deep into the heart of the icecore. It was not here to help him, or even to kill him; it was here to suck him dry, to steal his life and soul and knowledge, to pull him into the core of its being. . .to make him a part of itself.
He reeled with anguish, trying to turn away. But the matrix of ice had darkened around him. And now it abruptly caved in, like a collapsing hollow mound of earth, carrying him down under its own weight.
He could see the boojum's trap everywhere around him now, as he fell through the splintering icelink. And he screamed, as he felt the sinews s