Free Echoes of the Fourth Magic by R. A. Salvatore Page B

to a sitting position, cross-legged, with his head down.
    “I’m talking to you!” Mitchell yelled. With no reply forthcoming, he grabbed Thompson’s sandy-blond hair and roughly jerked the man’s head back. “Where’s Corbin? And what were those shots about?”
    Thompson stared blankly ahead, and a frustrated Mitchell tore his hand away, taking clumps of hair with it, then slapped Thompson across the face.
    Doc Brady had seen enough. He stepped between the two men, trying to hold the bigger man back.
    “It’s no good, Captain,” Brady reasoned. “You’re just scaring him more.”
    “I want to know what’s going on!”
    “Let me try,” Brady begged. Mitchell turned with a disgusted wave of his hand and stormed away. Brady half carried Thompson up the beach and sat him down on the edge of the raft.
    It took a lot of coaxing and soft talk, but finally Bradyhad Thompson ready to speak. Mitchell and Reinheiser gathered around while the seaman gave a jumbled and confused account of Ray Corbin’s death.
       By the time Billy and Del came in sight of the group, Thompson had finished his tale and was in the middle of yet another breakdown. Doc Brady took him by the arm and led him away.
    “What’s going on?” Del asked.
    “Corbin’s dead,” Mitchell replied.
    “What!” Del and Billy exclaimed in unison.
    “He was killed by a monster—a goblin.” Reinheiser sneered. “That is, if one can believe our less than sane friend over there.”
    “Lying bastard,” Mitchell grumbled.
    “Imagining is a better word for it,” Reinheiser replied. “I believe our deluded friend shot Mr. Corbin—by accident probably,” he quickly added, seeing that Del and Billy were about to protest the accusation. “His warped little mind then concocted these creatures so he wouldn’t have to face the reality of what he’d done.”
    “You’re wrong,” Brady argued, returning to the group. He had left Thompson lying on the sand. “I believe him.” Mitchell snorted in amazement as Brady explained, “There was too much detail in his description for him to be imagining the creatures.”
    “Of course there was detail,” Reinheiser retorted. “Those monsters actually exist in his mind. They’ve probably been there since his childhood days, the essence of countless nightmares.”
    “No way.”
    “Oh, Doctor, please.” Reinheiser sighed. “Might we try to remain logical and ration—”
    “Logical!” Brady laughed, pointing accusingly at Reinheiser and glancing about at all the others. “Will you just listen to the time traveler here telling me to be logical!”
    “Enough!” Mitchell roared, his voice edging on violence. The muscles in his arm twitched dangerously. Even Reinheiser refrained from any comments under the imposing glare, and Mitchell cooled at the immediate respect shown him. “I’ve got an officer missing, probably dead, and all I’ve got to go on is some bullshit story from that idiot!”
    He spoke loudly.
    Thompson heard.
    Mitchell raved on, and the others, watching him, didn’t see Thompson rise and charge across the beach. He bowled into the captain, clawing at his throat and screaming hysterically. “You’re the idiot!” he cried. “You’ll get us all killed!”
    Mitchell regained his balance in a second and easily pulled free of Thompson’s grasp. He was about to retaliate violently, Billy, Del, and Brady poised to intercede, when Thompson suddenly stopped fighting.
    “But maybe that’s it!” Thompson proclaimed excitedly as he spun away from the captain, seemingly unconcerned about his defenseless posture. As with his tantrum on the becalmed raft earlier that morning, his abrupt mood swing halted the others in confusion. Mitchell backed off and waited curiously for Thompson’s next move.
    “Don’t you see?” Thompson asked, looking around from man to man. “We don’t belong here. I wanted to escape on the raft, but that’s no good. Nowhere to go. Don’t you see? We don’t