Something fuzzed.
A gate.
An open gate—one that looked straight into the world beyond, no blackness and dancing colors forming a hallway to separate them.
A gate like Carson’s.
I stared at it, mouth agape, at the landscape beyond, contorted madly, enshrouded in mist and darkness …
And then, reaching through, came the many arms of a hundred moving automatons.
I scurried backward, pushing myself on bleeding hands—my back hit the wall, so I reached for the spear—but it was gone, damn it—
The automatons flashed terribly red lights.
I screamed as they buried me—
And I woke up, Burnton’s voice echoing one last time.
He’s still in here, Mira.
Cold sweat stuck my hair to my forehead.
“Manny,” I breathed, eyes wide.
The gears spun. Carson’s gates—the way they looked through from one world to the next, no gap between them—and the hawk amalgam. We’d banished it to a void—and yet it had come back somehow.
Which meant there was not nothing in between worlds, like I believed, a place where matter and minds simply ceased to be, unraveled in the moment they passed through—but other worlds, perhaps the broken, fractured ones the early Wayfarers had conjured into being in their fledging attempts at traveling from their own worlds to others.
If that were true—if it were universally true—or perhaps only true of the space behind those crystal walls … then that meant …
“I can save my brother,” I whispered into the dark, heart hammering my chest.
“I can bring him back.”
8
“Manny died!?”
That was Carson’s wailed response after I filled him in, the next morning, as to how Professor Erbridge’s quest had ultimately concluded.
“I thought so,” I said, “but now I’m not so sure.”
“Run through this again,” said Heidi.
We were sitting in front of the endlessly burning fireplace, crackling softly in the background. Spread across two tables today, at the moment there were four of us—me, Carson, Heidi, and Borrick. Bub’s snore drifted from his room intermittently, fierce rumbles that had contributed to my own troubled nights all too many times.
“When the Antecessors had me,” I began again, “Manny got impatient, and he cut through to a void. I thought he was gone—but we sent the mech to a void, and look what happened: it came back.”
“So now you think all voids work the same,” said Heidi.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I don’t know what I think exactly. But I do believe they might be broken worlds, rather than true voids, at least some of them.” The disbelieving look on her face didn’t shift far, so I tried a different tack. “Think of it this way. The early Wayfarers brought fractured worlds into being constantly while they were refining their techniques in … burrowing through, or however you want to think of it. As they got more refined—and as they developed technologies like this—” I held up the compass, its face presently blank “—then doesn’t it stand to reason that, as a way of safeguarding future Seekers, they spun the tale about voids, to keep people from going through to places that were much more dangerous than usual?”
Heidi and Carson exchanged looks, hers still unsure, Carson’s ashen—I suspected he was still firmly stuck on the fact that Manny had ‘died’, and not taking in any of what I was saying right now.
“Okay, you don’t believe me,” I said.
“There’s a lot of evidence that goes against you,” said Heidi.
“What evidence though?” I countered. “Generations of warnings, all spread by people who toe the line and never take that risk in the first place?”
“A lot of Seekers have gone missing in voids,” said Heidi.
“Yes, well, a lot of those places are dangerous. It’s not like I’m saying that the broken worlds hidden by the fuzz on my compass are theme parks filled with wild rides, or anything like that. I’ve heard enough bits and pieces from translated Wayfarer archives to know the sort of thing they contended with. Worlds with acid rain, unbreathable atmospheres, terrain that collapsed the moment someone set foot on it. Of course people would die in fractured worlds and never come back; we’re warned away from them for a reason. But it doesn’t mean they’re places of absolutely nothing, where anything that drops in just ceases to be.”
Heidi pursed her lips.
Carson’s stupefied gaze had zoned out to some infinite distance well beyond the walls of the library. Still staring out into this far-off space, though, he began to speak, slowly. “A few months ago, the Order of Apdau attacked us on the Spurn Wyle. They followed us through to London, and we ran …”
“Across Hyde Park,” I said. “I remember.”
Heidi clapped a hand to her mouth.
“I cut a gateway underneath the Order, to get rid of them … a gateway to a world filled with grey mist, like on your compass.”
I remembered—remembered the frightening way it had juddered underfoot, leaving wounds across the grass where its spasmodic shudders caused it to widen unevenly, long jags extending like crevasses underneath us, threatening to pitch us into the void in an instant.
I remember seeing the Order tumble into the void. And then …
“They came back out,” I whispered.
Carson nodded. Eyes on mine, looking as though he were on the verge of being sick, he repeated, “They came back out.”
“I didn’t think much of it at the time because we were distracted—you know, with running and everything else going on.” I clapped a hand to my forehead. “Why didn’t I think about it when everything had calmed down? Even for a second? The Order escaped a void. I didn’t think it was a void at the time—”
“Because they came out of it,” said Heidi quietly.
“—but it was, I’m pretty sure now. And the Order escaped.”
Carson nodded. “Just like your bird robot.”
“We sent them to a void via Ostiagard too,” said Heidi. “By rights, that gateway should’ve actually dumped them out someplace on Earth.”
“And they’re still out there,” I said.
If it were possible for Carson to pale even more, he would have done then. “You saw the Order again?”
I nodded. “Out on the Spurn Wyle, en route to the Way-Crossing. They didn’t attack us though—just said some stuff about having ‘seen’.”
Carson frowned. “Seen what?”
“Antecessor crap, I think. The true state of things.”
“We don’t know they were the same guys as the ones in Ostiagard,” said Heidi. “Their leader wasn’t with them in any case.”
“That or he’s pawned off all his rings,” I muttered.
“My point is, the Order might be huge. There could be hundreds, even thousands, of the idiots walking round in their hooded dressing gowns. So we don’t know if the ones from Ostiagard came back or not …”
“Or if they’re somewhere on our world,” Carson murmured, “still roaming about.” He winced, swallowed against a dry lump in his throat that clicked rather than dislodged itself, and finished, “Looking for revenge.”
“We’ll protect you,” I said, gripping his wrist. “We’ve beaten the Order plenty. And anyway—apparently they don’t have beef with me anymore. If they’ve been kept in the loop, should those guys from Ostiagard ever turn up again, the worst they’ll do is a riddle-me-this routine when I’m least expecting it.” But I was getting off track. “Anyhow—my brother. Manny. I think I can get him back.”
Heidi looked pained. “Mira …”
“What?” I said, heat suddenly rising. “We’ve been around this enough times. I’ve explained my thought process. I think he’s still out there. You think your mother might still be out there. I’m helping you. Now it’s my personal quest we’re considering, you’re not in on it?”
“Slow down,” said Heidi, calm. “I understand, Mira. I do.
”
“Thank you.”
“My only hesitation is this: Let’s say Manny did go through to a fractured world, and not a void. He disappeared … how long ago?”
I swallowed. “Fifty-one days ago.”
“Fifty-one days ago,” Heidi repeated. “Your brother is a Seeker. He’s capable, very capable. So why hasn’t he come back already?”
My heart skipped.
That very same thought had drifted in the back of my mind since awaking from my dream. I hadn’t given it much focus—just looking at it, with my mind’s eye, was like inviting a parasitic blackness inside of me, something nauseating and cancerous.
Now she’d laid it out there for me, given that dark thing a voice.
And the nausea roiled in me. My stomach hollowed, a black pit in its place.
I could taste bile in my throat.
I swallowed, hard; took a steadying breath that did not steady me much at all.
My fingers were like talons on the table, I realized distantly, the knuckles gone bone white.
Fifty-one days gone—fifty-one days, and one of the most capable, experienced Seekers I knew had not come back.
And with that, my whole voids-are-not-voids theory either came unravelling, like Manny might well have … or it was bolstered—because whatever danger Manny faced in the place—it might have finished him.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I have to try to find him. Just like you want to find your mother, after all these years. Any way it’s possible—and I think it is possible—I have to try, Heidi. I have to.”
“I know,” she said quietly, nodding softly. “I’m with you.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
“How do you want to rescue him?” asked Carson.
My gaze alighted on him.
For the second time in twenty-four hours, I found myself hoping, praying, desperately that he would agree to this.
“With you.”
He frowned. Glasses slipping down his nose, he pushed them up again. “Excuse me?”
“Your gates,” I explained, “don’t function the same as ours. I don’t know what it is about them—but you can see through to the world on the other side, in real-time. You can see through to the world Manny went into … and with my line launcher, I can go inside—and if he’s in there …” I felt Heidi wince at that, caught it in the corner of my eye, but couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face up to that possibility until I absolutely had to “… then I can get him out.”
Carson bit his lip. “It’s a big ‘if’.”
I nodded. “I know it is. But it’s all I have.”
He nodded too. “All right then,” he said, his voice somewhat hoarse—it really did look as though he were ill now, pale, glossed with a thin sheen of sweat, his eyes underlined by dark circles. “When do we go?”
My heart skipped, not just one beat, but a half-dozen of them all in a row.
I could grab him up and kiss him, I was so happy hearing those words.
“Right now,” I answered, already pushing to my feet.
9
“This is as far as I can escort you.”
Arranged on the top deck of the Velocity stood me, Carson and Heidi, plus Borrick and Bub, the last of whom was woken and filled in hastily before we left the hideout (I’d nearly departed without him, honestly, and not out of forgetfulness; I just wanted to move). Joining us were a handful of Tyran Burnton’s crew, bronze-skinned Commander Greco overseeing them in his silver-edged black robes, and finally Tyran Burnton himself, clad in brilliant gold. It shone, reflecting the brilliantly glowing lights that illuminated the towering skyscrapers arranged throughout Yyrax, and the monument at its core.
We’d flown in over the city’s outer wall. The gun turrets that had threatened entry before Professor Erbridge’s quest were deactivated now, all pointing downward, not one moving even an inch as the Velocity sailed past. I was relieved at that—but I could not deny the slightly bitter taste in my mouth as they fell behind us. The Antecessors had built this enormous city, defended it for countless centuries, purely for one stupid puzzle buried below it. People had died trying to crack the secrets of this place—and there were none. It was just a maze for rats, nothing more than that—and once the Superbia Balteum had been collected from it, the city was free for the taking—yet more evidence that the Antecessors did all of this for nothing more than a fleeting amusement.
Hah. As though I needed any of that. I’d learned that directly from the source.
The monument at the core of storm-cloud-covered city—what was it with the Antecessors and blanketing their final trials in darkness?—rose on three struts, thinning and then widening toward the top, all hard angles.
The Velocity sailed in.
As before, I had a sense of shrinking, of being absolutely miniscule. Now, though, it was heightened. I was not just an ant compared to the vastness of Yyrax—I was an ant on a universal scale, in both time and space, as the Antecessors had shown me.
“Thank you, Tyran,” I said when the Velocity finally slowed beside the walkway clinging just above the pillar’s struts. I stepped off, over a gap of maybe six inches, doing my best not to glance down and momentarily failing it anyway. It was a long drop.
Carson was terribly aware of that. He blanched as he neared the edge. Closing his eyes and gripping the rail tight, he muttered, “Do not look down. Do not—oh, geez …”
“I’ve got you,” said Heidi, a hand in the crook of his elbow. “And Bub is primed and ready to snatch you up if you do fall.”
“I will grab you before you can say ‘oh no, I’m falling, I’m going to die a horrible and painful death’,” said Bub.
“By the time he says that he’ll be halfway to the ground,” Borrick muttered.
None of this assuaged Carson. He stood a clear eighteen inches from the Velocity’s terminus, gripping the rail with his arms extended as far as they’d go, to keep him the greatest possible distance from tipping over the side. Rooted that he was, though, he took a drunken sort of sway as he opened his eyes to glance forward.
“Ohh …”
Heidi wrapped her arm around him. “I’ve got you.”
“Afraid of heights, are you, lad?” Tyran asked cheerily. “You won’t drop off. It’s easy! Why, look at this!” And as Carson begrudgingly opened his eyes, Tyran stepped back and then took a running leap, with his eyes closed, over the side of the Velocity. He landed hard on the metal at my side, tripped, yelped, then turned the whole thing into a roll, shoving himself to his feet as he righted again and then twirling, arms extended. He grinned and shouted, “Tah dah!” but there was a mad leer of terror in his eye.
“Ohh, ge-e-ez …”
“It’s okay,” said Heidi kindly. “We’ll just step off … that’s it … forward a bit more …”
“I don’t like this,” Carson whispered.
“I know. It’ll all be over soon, I promise. Forward …”
“You are ten inches away from the edge, the Carson,” Bub rumbled.
Carson moaned. Heidi’s jaw ground—at the distance update, and that damned ‘the’ creeping back in again. She looked like she’d have swatted him if not for all the barbs on his armor.
“As I was saying,” said Tyran to me as Heidi guided Carson to the gap between the Velocity and the monument, “I cannot escort you farther than this. But I, and the Velocity, will wait for you here.”
“Thank you,” I said, “and for bringing us in at short notice.”
“Think nothing of it. I had given you another twelve hours before I set off for the Spoon of Abundance anyway.”
“Might as well kill the time then,” I said awkwardly, glancing to Carson. He was even closer to the edge now—probably four inches, I’d say, although the way Heidi was intermittently glaring daggers at Bub, I didn’t think there would be another estimate from him as to just how close our American friend was from falling to his death.
“Well, I was having my hair—excuse me, toda
y it was a manicure,” he hastily corrected. “Tomorrow is my hair appointment, and I could not have possibly canceled that. This little jaunt is much more exciting than a manicure, though—and I expect you’ll be a while anyway, don’t you?” He asked this a little hopefully, lifting his hand up.
“At least a couple of hours, I’d think,” I said. “We’ve got a trek ahead of us.” I thought of the route—it was burned into my mind, though not seared in quite so dramatically as the very end of it. Cut through to the Statue of Liberty’s torch, then through to the maze’s central area, through the fire maze … I crossed my fingers that that one had been switched off now the Superbia Balteum had been claimed. Likely it was; the power had gone out in the end, as I sat hugging my knees to my chest and Borrick awkwardly held my shoulders, plunging the arena and its crystalline core into twilight.
“Take your time,” said Tyran. “My cuticles need extra attention for a photoshoot I have next week. New product placement ad. Ah, there we go—you’ve done it! Well done,” he said sympathetically to Carson. At least, I gathered he was hoping for a sympathetic tone. He couldn’t have been too well practiced at it, because he sounded more patronizing than anything. “I’ll see you back here shortly then, and my nails will be mesmerizing,” he finished, nodding to me, and then stepping aboard the Velocity. No acrobatics this time. (Actually, I noticed him take a rather unsubtle look down, and grab out for the handrail himself this time.)
“See you,” I said to Tyran. Then, as the King of the Skies returned to Commander Greco and they made their way back toward the door into the ship, I appraised my own team. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Ready,” confirmed Borrick.
Bub nodded. “Ready, Miss Mira.”
Carson swayed. Eyes firmly closed, he gripped onto Heidi as though he’d float off into the atmosphere if he were to let go—or, I guess at this moment, be dislodged by a sudden gust of wind, focused on him very directly, and go careening down to Yyrax’s floor.
“Let’s just move, shall we?” said Heidi.
I didn’t need telling twice. Compass in hand—I’d been clutching it since well before we slowed to a stop outside the monument—I set off around the walkway, looking for the cut-through that would lead us into the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
The Gang of Legend Page 6
