The Regulators still standing on the docks continued to fire at the impenetrable wall, sending lead balls ricocheting in every direction. They probably didn’t understand the nature of the shield in front of them, having never seen Barrier Grit take such a unique shape. Or maybe they just couldn’t help but pull their triggers in fear.
“I think this sets the record,” Raek declared.
“For what?” asked Ard, not tearing his eyes from Garifus below.
“Fastest job ever to go to slag.” Raek leaned back and began loading more Heg into his chest pipe.
“What are they doing down there?” Quarrah asked.
Ard peered through his spyglass. Garifus and Alumay were pacing something off as if measuring the docks.
“Looks like they’re trying to figure out exactly where the original detonation occurred,” said Raek.
“Makes sense,” replied Ard. “Isless Onsto failed that Visitant Grit detonation seven hundred years ago. The docks would have been very different back then.”
Raek replaced the cork in his pipe. “Are there any records or drawings of what they might have looked like during her time?”
“I don’t know,” said Ard. “Why?”
“They might be trying to overlay the original layout of the harbor.” He rapped on the pipe and took a deep, soothing breath. “It would give them a better idea of where the first detonation happened all those years ago.”
“If there are maps, we better hope none of those Glassminds have ever laid eyes on them,” said Quarrah.
She made a good point, with their perfect, collective recall. “At least it’s slowing them down,” Ard said. “Buying us some time.”
“Time for what?” cried Quarrah. “There’s no way we can reach them. And don’t try to tell me that the great Ardor Benn can smooth talk his way past that many Regulators. Not even the queen’s pardon will get you through them.”
Ard took a deep breath. This was not his day. Why did it feel like the last years of work were all falling apart in a matter of hours?
“Maybe it’s finally time to lose that pardon.” Ard glanced at Raek. “What do you say, partner? You think Ardor Benn and the Short Fuse have one more ride in them?”
“Don’t call me that…” Raek sighed wearily.
“I say we leave this timeline in a blaze of glory.” Ard clapped his hands enthusiastically, but his energy wasn’t as contagious as he’d hoped.
“Do you even have a plan?” Quarrah asked.
“Always.” Ard turned to Raek. “How much Containment Grit do you have?”
“I’ve got a vial or two of everything in here.” He jabbed a thumb at his backpack.
Ard smiled. “I know a little kid in the Western Quarter who keeps his pet rat in a ball of twigs. Rolls around all on its own.”
“Neat,” Quarrah said flatly, but he knew Raek could already see where he was heading.
“Ho, no.” He shook his bald head.
“It would work, wouldn’t it?” Ard said. “We close ourselves in a ball of Containment Grit and roll all the way down the ramps.”
“What?” Quarrah shrieked.
“I hate your ideas,” Raek said, though he was already digging in his pack for the vials.
“We’re not seriously going to—”
“This spot looks good,” Ard interrupted, staring down a sheer fifteen-foot drop. The stretch of ramp directly below was scattered with a dozen Regulators. He couldn’t really tell them to move without tipping their hand.
“Ready?” Raek said, holding out his hand. Two vials of red liquid shimmered in the fading daylight.
“Wait,” said Quarrah. “What do we do when we get down to the docks?”
Raek held up another vial with yellow liquid. “The minute our Containment ball hits their Barrier wall, I’ll dash this Null Grit.”
“Then we run like sparks,” Ard said. “We may not be able to steal their Visitant Grit, but we can try to beat them into the cloud.”
“And what’s our exit strategy?” Quarrah asked.
“Exit strategy?” Ard said. “I don’t think we need one this time. If everything works like we’re hoping, our future won’t even be here to welcome us back.”
Ard stepped over to the edge of the cliff, holding out a hand, hoping Quarrah would accept it. She did. And even though it was probably just to make the jump smoother, he liked to think there might have been something more behind it.
“This is going to be a direct assault on a whole lot of Reggies,” Raek said, taking Quarrah’s other hand. “Might even squash a few. You’re okay with this, Ard?”
He shrugged. “I think I should go out of this world the same way I came into it.”
“Crying?” Quarrah asked.
“A criminal.”
“Ready?” Raek checked. “We jump on three. One.”
“I just want to say,” Ard began, turning to Quarrah, “since time is about to stop for us anyway…”
“Two,” Raek continued.
“I still love you,” Ard said. “I’ve never stopped.”
“Aw, thanks,” Raek said.
“Sparks, I was talking to Quarrah!” Ard cried.
“Three!”
Hand in hand, they sprinted the final steps and jumped from the repair field. Midflight, Raek gave a mighty cry and Ard heard him shatter the red vials of Containment Grit. Airborne as they were, the Containment bubble formed a perfect sphere, barely enclosing the trio as they plummeted to the ramp below.
Warning shouts sounded as the Reggies tried to throw themselves out of harm’s way. A few even managed to get off a couple shots before the ball came crashing down on them.
Inside the sphere, the landing impact knocked the air out of Ard’s lungs as his legs buckled. Quarrah and Raek slammed into him with jarring force as their ball bounced and skidded, cracking through the ramp’s railing but managing not to go over the edge.
The rat ball centered itself on the wooden ramp, the steep grade immediately sending it rolling. The Reggies were screaming, barking commands, some diving out of the way while others stood their ground with Rollers spitting lead.
But there was no stopping the three criminals in the impenetrable ball. In moments, they were rolling fast enough that Ard was plastered against the inside of the sphere, Quarrah and Raek smashed against him. He watched the world spin—the sky, the ramp, punctuated by the occasional mug of a Reggie pressed to the Containment cloud like a child making faces on a glass window.
He felt sick. Dizzy beyond belief. He was only vaguely aware that the Containment cloud had banked on the hillside, successfully making the switchback turn and picking up more speed on the final stretch to the docks.
Then, wham! The Containment ball struck its equal, jolting to a halt with force that threw Ard and his partners to the other side of their vehicle. Through eyes that could barely focus, Ard realized they had hit the Glassminds’ Barrier wall.
“Ha!” Raek shouted, and Ard heard the crunch of the Null Grit vial.
The smooth glassiness of the Containment sphere disappeared and Ard found himself on his hands and knees on the damp dock, trying to get his head on straight. Fewer than thirty yards away, he saw Garifus Floc, flanked by Alumay and another Glassmind. The cult leader’s hand was outstretched, fingertips sparking as a detonation streamed from his hand.
No! Ard had to be the first one into that Visitant cloud! He pulled himself up, staggering sideways. His body ached from their tumble, his nose bleeding. Quarrah moved beside him, having just as much difficulty walking on a dock that appeared to be pitched at an impossible slant. Behind, Ard heard Raek give a war cry as he ran straight off the edge of the dock, hitting the water with a splash.
Garifus cast a sidelong glance at them and Ard knew he had lost. The confidence on the Glassmind’s face held an undeniable victory. An expression that Ard himself had worn, so many times.
With a grin, Garifus Floc stepped forward, vanishing into the cloud of Visitant Grit.
Ard fought against the feeling of dizziness and failure. Maybe it wasn’t too late… Maybe Ard could still fling himself into the cloud and become a Paladin Visitant. The timeline would reset and humanity would have another chance to stop Garifus from transforming.
Ard lurched toward the cloud, his head finally righting enough for him to run in a straight line. He was almost there when something erupted out of the water beside the dock. A figure blasted upward and landed on the planks with a shower of droplets. It was a Glassmind. No, wait…
It was Garifus Floc!
He stepped past a stupefied Ardor Benn and stretched out one hand, absorbing the Visitant Grit cloud into his pale blue palm. Where the blazes had he come from? And why did he wear that unsettling smile, face raised to the sky?
“I am here!” the man bellowed. “I am seen again!”
The Glassminds around him all gave the cultist symbol, touching their middle fingers to their foreheads.
“We literally saw you ten seconds ago!” Raek yelled, hoisting himself out of the water.
Garifus looked at the trio of dizzy humans. “Ten seconds for you…” His voice was soft. “Seven hundred and two years for me.” He closed his eyes as though relishing the moment. “At last, the Sphere is complete. I have lived a great loop in time, from the first detonation of Visitant Grit until this very moment. From the shadows, I have watched history unfold. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall. Seven centuries of war and peace. Seven centuries alone. Unseen. But along the way, I have come to understand exactly who I am.” He opened his eyes, glowing red. “I am Centrum.”
“That can’t be,” Quarrah whispered. “Gloristar told us that Centrum was the first to transform. But she did it two years before you.”
“Not the first to transform,” he said. “The first in existence. When I traveled back in time, I predated Gloristar by seven centuries.”
“She heard your voice,” continued Quarrah. “You called yourself Centrum. She said you tried to kill her.”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “Gloristar’s views were not aligned with mine.”
“Meaning…?” Ard probed.
“She did not agree with the Great Egress,” he answered. “She was not ready for a mass transformation.”
“But you couldn’t snuff her out,” said Ard.
“As there were only two of us, I did not have the strength of mind that comes with the majority. She and I found ourselves in a mental duel. I would have defeated her if our telepathic link had stayed active.”
“But Gloristar’s skull cracked,” said Raek. “And the two of you were disconnected.”
“No matter,” he said. “I dealt with her in the Mooring. Time always runs out for those unwilling to join with the majority.”
“So you’re a dictator?” Ard said. “You don’t allow anyone to think differently.”
“I am a god,” said Garifus. “I have ascended to become something unrivaled. Those who understand that will choose to think as I do. I’m not controlling anyone. Each of us maintains our individuality. But all is shared freely, so there can be no guile. Everyone must become of one mind. I have seen the petty differences of the minority tear civilization apart century after century.”
“Hold on,” Ard said. “If you were there all along, why aren’t you in the history books?”
“If I were seen, all of time would have folded in upon itself,” explained Garifus. “I cloaked myself in Shadow Grit and remained silent so history considered Isless Onsto a failure.”
Ard scoffed. “That’s my thing. I came up with that first…”
“You were a Paladin Visitant,” Garifus went on. “But it was different for a Glassmind. When Isless Onsto’s Visitant cloud closed, I remained in the past, forced to hide until the present day.”
“So you’ve just been slinking around dark alleyways for the last seven hundred years?” Few things sounded more boring and tedious to Ardor Benn.
“I spent most of the years in the sea beyond the Greater Chain,” said Garifus.
“Swimming?” Ard cried.
“Or adrift on wreckage from unfortunate ships,” he said. “My body needs no food or water. No sleep.”
“Still…” said Quarrah.
“I did it for you,” Garifus replied. “For all of you!” He shouted to the Regulators looking on from the hillside. “Now that time has become Spherical, I can make you feel the truth of it!”
His fingertips sparked, a small detonation forming. Garifus reached into it, his hand disappearing up to the elbow. As he withdrew his hand, Ard suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of peace wash over him. He knew he should have been frightened of Garifus. At the very least, he should have been angry. But he felt calm. The only thing he could compare it to was…
“You feel the Urgings from the Homeland,” said Garifus. “Calming your nerves. Soothing your concerns.”
Across the hillside, Ard saw the Regulators relaxing, lowering guns that had been raised all this time.
“How are you doing this?” Ard whispered, fighting to feel something other than the peace Garifus was blanketing them with.
“A world of infinite emotions is at our fingertips,” Garifus said. “Timelines upon timelines. Things that once were. Or things that might have been. All of it has been rolled into one great Sphere. My people can easily access it with Visitant Grit.”
“That’s why you’re making us feel like this?” Quarrah said. “I don’t understand.”
“The Visitant Grit now acts as a kind of portal for the Othians. I merely had to sift through millions of alternate timelines until I found one where you all felt peace in this location.”
“Merely millions…” Ard repeated.
“I was able to reach into that nonexistent timeline and retrieve that emotion, applying it to you in reality.”
Garifus said it so matter-of-factly, but Ard’s head was reeling. He should have been shaking, but he still felt calm.
“Get out of my head,” Raek muttered.
Garifus raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you understand. I am not controlling your mind. I cannot make you think or feel something you haven’t already experienced naturally.”
“I’ve been in your presence twice now,” Raek said. “Calm wasn’t the natural takeaway.”
“Perhaps not in this Material Time,” he said. “But in an alternate timeline, you have felt peace in my presence. I am able to turn that emotion into something material and apply it to you now. Those who have lived Wayfarist lives should not find this hard to accept. It is the very nature of the Homeland’s Urgings.”
“But I’ve felt those Urgings in the past,” Ard said. “Years before you were…” He trailed off, realizing that Garifus—Centrum—had always been out there.
“Past. Present. Future,” said Garifus. “Time means little now that the Sphere is complete. Every Urging that has ever been felt was intended to direct time to the Homeland. To us. My Glassminds will soon reach back through time, applying direction and emotion to key individuals to assure that everything will unfold as it has.”
“But the Urgings…” Ard stammered on. “They’ve been more specific than that. I’ve read about Isles and Islesses who saw visions… heard voices directing them.”
“Yes,” Garifus said. “Much in the same way we apply emotions from alternate timelines, we can also apply visions and whispers. In a Sphere of infinite possibilities, there is nothing a person has not seen or heard. We merely take those immaterial memories—those shadows—and impose them upon your mortal minds.”
“If you can manipulate people with such ease,” said Ard, “why not reach back in time and have your enemies destroyed before they become a problem?”
Raek smacked him on the shoulder. “Sparks! Don’t give him ideas!”
“The Glassminds can only influence the past with great care,” explained Garifus. “Now that time is locked, nothing can jeopardize the creation of the Othians. If something in the past prevented our transformati
on, time and space would collapse entirely. There would be no existence whatsoever.”
Ard breathed a sigh of relief. He, Raek, and Quarrah, were all instrumental in bringing the Glassminds into existence. Did that mean they were safe? But that same instrumentality meant that he’d received Urgings to bring to pass this very end. Sparks! Had he been a pawn in Centrum’s plans all along?
“As Othians,” said Garifus, “we can move freely through the Sphere, traveling backward through time to leave the Urgings that will assure we do come into existence.”
“And the future?” Quarrah asked. “You can travel there as well?”
“In a sense,” he answered. “Through the Visitant Grit, we can see an infinite number of possible futures. It is impossible to know which will unfold as the Material Time.”
That was a relief. Centrum and his redheads could tweak the past, but not the future. But wait, going back in time was foreseeing the future for those in the past.
Ahh! Hedge Marsool! That had to be the answer! The King Poacher had told Quarrah that he’d been guided by his feelings and a whisper in his mind. Wasn’t that exactly what Garifus was describing? Centrum had manipulated Hedge to steal the dragon. But why?
“We can still stop you,” said Ard. “We can find our own Visitant Grit and become a Paladin Visitant—”
“Did you hear nothing I said?” Garifus cut him off. “Now that the Sphere is complete, there can be no more Paladin Visitants. No more resetting of the timeline. The linear progression of time was only ever a means to an end.” He gestured to his fellow Glassminds. “We are the end. Humankind was meant to evolve. The trouble was, we kept destroying ourselves before we had the chance. Paladin Visitants allowed for the resetting of time, putting us back on a linear track to total evolution. The moment that end was reached—the moment a Glassmind transformed—time was finally fulfilled. There can be no more circling back to undo us, because we are the very fulfillment of time. Time is now locked and it can only be influenced to this selfsame end.”
The Last Lies of Ardor Benn Page 42
