The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  "Take it easy there. Easy!" Tanner helped free her hands from the hilt, and then he bound her palms in fabric ripped from the cloaks of the dead Direwalkers. She kept a wary eye out while he worked.

  "Tanner," she said.

  "Mmm?"

  This was hard, but it needed to be said. "Sorry for all the times I've been a bitch to you."

  He laughed, just a little. "You've never been a bitch to me Ari."

  "No, I have." She looked at him and smiled sadly. "And I shouldn't have. I'll try to be less of a bitch in the future, okay?"

  He shook his head. "Okay Ari. Okay. You're too hard on yourself."

  She shrugged. "Maybe. But I can be too hard on others, too. The hammer of the forge inside me won't back down sometimes, and it hurts the people I care about the most."

  "Oh don't you worry, I have a shield, Ari," Tanner said. "Made of crazy-strong bronze. It's a little battered, sure, but it's never let me down yet." He tied off the last of the makeshift bandages, and stood. "That should do it."

  She clambered to her feet, and blinked the sudden stars away. She didn't protest when Tanner bent to retrieve the Box from the melted snowpack. He could carry it. She was too exhausted.

  She'd escaped from the heart of darkness, from the domain of the only man she feared in this world. She hadn't been afraid of him earlier today. But she was afraid of him now. More than anything. But fear was good. The fire sword had made her cocky. Lesson learned. She'd think twice before throwing away well-laid plans again. A good man had died today because of her.

  At least they'd managed to plant a tracker.

  She and Tanner kept their weapons out as they retreated wearily across the snowpack. Her sword was painful and awkward to grip, but there was nothing for it. Some of the Direwalkers had remained behind, and followed in the shadows. Both of them knew it. She'd have to take a roundabout route to the hideaway, and perhaps arrange an ambush along the way.

  "I believe it's time we set up a meeting with The Dwarf," Tanner said.

  She raised her eyebrows. "The Dwarf?"

  "Yes." Tanner glanced at her. "The children restored his connection a few months back."

  "And what's that supposed to mean?"

  Tanner rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. "The Dwarf's the only one who can talk to your father."

  Epilogue

  Looking down from the balcony, Jeremy surveyed the clean-up of his reception hall. Some of the black-liveried servants mopped the blood and soot marks from the marble, others piled the mutilated bodies into barrows, while still others hauled the bodies away for burning in the kitchens. Some servants took down the ruined paintings. Some repaired the cracks in the walls.

  Ari. She'd pay for all this, he promised. Killing his Direwalkers. Interrupting his dinner party. Messing up his reception hall. Stealing his Revision Box. Oh, she'd pay.

  "You three!" he called down to the seamstresses he'd hired to cover the burn marks in his precious Living Carpet. "Careful now... that rug is worth more than your miserable hides combined! Make a mistake and you'll never sew again, I swear it!" There was no real damage the seamstresses could do to the thing, of course, other than make it look even uglier. The women were merely a convenient outlet for his rage. Still, fear would make them work with more care and diligence. Fear. His favorite spur.

  With a sigh, he left the balcony and returned to his room. He hardly noticed the luxury around him anymore. The tapestries of the underwater cities he'd dreamed about. The sculptures of sea creatures. The miniature coral reefs. All commissioned for outrageous fees. Art that fed his obsession. Art based on water. Water. The one thing this world lacked in profusion. Blast this icy place!

  Ah well, he wasn't here to brood on ice, art, or women. He glanced at the clock on his fireplace. Three o'clock. Right on time.

  He went to the mirror on the far side of the bed chamber, knelt on one knee, and inclined his head. The thread-of-gold tentacle on his sleeve caught the light.

  "Master," he said.

  When he looked up, the dark shape that called itself One lurked within the mirror, near the bed. It might pass as human in that black robe, with its face hidden in the shadow of the hood. But it was not human.

  As usual, Jeremy felt the undeniable fervor that accompanied the Great One's appearance, a fervor that nearly overcame him. He could have wept, shouted for joy, and laughed maniacally, all at the same time.

  He resisted the urge to turn around. The Great One resided in the mirror, his mirror, and nowhere else.

  Nowhere else.

  The thought filled him with ecstasy. Exclusivity. Such a drug.

  Those unseen lips spoke to him in a baritone that was too low to belong to any man. "Status update." The voice came from behind Jeremy, and again he had to resist the urge to look. He'd embarrassed himself far too many times doing that.

  "I've created ten thousand of the new gols, as you commanded, Great One, and garrisoned them throughout the city, near the portal hops. They are ready to march at your order. The unit leaders have been assigned, the instructions uploaded."

  "Excellent," the Great One said. "I am pleased."

  Jeremy felt his heart leap. "May I have my reward, then?"

  "Not yet."

  Jeremy lowered his eyes. It wasn't fair. But he couldn't say that. Not to the Great One.

  The voice assumed a strange inflection. "Have there been... difficulties?" It sounded almost accusing.

  "No, master," Jeremy said, maybe a little too quickly, and he twisted his lips at the sudden distaste in his mouth. "No difficulties at all."

  "Good," the Great One said. "Because if there were difficulties, and you didn't tell me..."

  Jeremy put on his best smile, and he looked right into the darkness of that face. "All is going according to plan, Great One."

  He gazed into that black hood for as long as he dared, and then lowered his eyes. When he glanced up again, the Great One was gone.

  Jeremy giggled, and spoke to the empty air. "All according to my plan, that is!"

  Part III

  The Mirror Breaks

  41

  The snowstorm raged around Ari. The whirling flakes sliced the air. The wind howled like a banshee promising doom.

  She knelt at the base of the Forever Gate, though the infinity of that wall was lost to the storm. A sword hilt was wedged into the snowpack, the tip of the blade resting just beneath her sternum.

  All it would take was for her to lean forward, just slightly, and it would all end...

  Die on the Inside, and you die for real.

  Hoodwink had told her that there was only a chance you'd die Outside, if you perished on the Inside. He had left something out. When you died violently as a gol on the Inside, death in the real-world was certain.

  She fingered that cold steel.

  Ari deserved death for what she'd done. She'd allowed Hoodwink to die. Led Marks to his doom.

  And now Tanner was dead, because of her.

  Tanner.

  Dying was the only way to end this grief. Dying was the only way to save herself.

  The only way to reach Hoodwink.

  She'd been given a second chance at life. Her youth had been restored, youth that shouldn't have been taken away in the first place.

  A second chance.

  Wasted.

  It was past her time. Well past her time.

  "Across the Forever Gate," she said. "To the morning of the new world. I'm coming to your utopia, Hoodwink."

  She grabbed the base of the sword with both hands.

  "This isn't the way," Hoodwink said.

  She stiffened, and glanced over her shoulder. "Hoodwink?"

  But no one was there. An illusion of the storm.

  She closed her eyes, and thrust her body forward.

  42

  Earlier...

  Ari lay spreadeagled, her arms and legs roped to the ground so that she floated an inch off the sand. Her wrists and ankles burned with agony where the ropes ma
de contact, and her shoulders and thighs felt like they were going to tear right out from their sockets. Her face throbbed with heat and her body was covered in sweat. She used the gol mindtrick that allowed her to ignore the heat and the pain, but that trick needed a focus she was quickly losing.

  Her fire sword jutted from the ground, off to the right, stabbed hilt-first into the sand. The handmirror that could get her out of this was off to the left, face down.

  Around her, the sand dunes slumped to the horizon, vaguely reminding her of the snow drifts she'd lived with most of her life. Snow. What she would've given for a blizzard about now. Or even just a glass of water—the molten sun had scorched away what little moisture remained inside her, and had almost done the same to her sanity.

  She gazed across those dunes, toward the distant, picked-clean skeleton of her only companion, one of the dead leviathans. From the unburied skull, wide as a house, a backbone extended, cupped by a prodigious basket of ribs.

  "Water." She mouthed the word, but no sound came. She laughed, but it came out a hiss. It wouldn't be long before she joined that giant skeleton, strewing the landscape with her bony remains. "Water."

  She was thirsty, yes, but it was the hunger she felt most keenly. Hunger from not eating in the real world. The umbilical cord that tethered her to this world was made of copper and steel and gave her none of the nutrients an actual umbilical would have.

  She appeared in this world as a gol, an artificial entity designed to look like a human, but perfect of form, and stronger in body than any human. Because of her gol-strength, the ropes shouldn't have held her, yet here she was.

  "Have you calmed down yet?" came the voice of her captor.

  A long lever materialized between her legs. A mirage? She tensed her arms and legs to keep from touching it.

  "Good," her captor said. "I wouldn't advise touching that."

  She had to constantly maintain the tension—relax just a little, and her most sensitive parts would trigger that lever. Her muscles shook from the effort.

  An apparatus appeared around her now, along with the lever.

  Ari lay face-up with her head in a guillotine.

  43

  Ari felt the strength slipping from her.

  "So now you find yourself in the same situation your father once did," her captor taunted. "Tits-up, splayed, and ready for the guillotine. Your father escaped because the guillotine blade was dull, and he wore a collar. This blade is sharp. And you have no collar."

  She tried to disbelieve reality. Tried her hardest. But it didn't work. She needed that mirror to attempt the trick Hoodwink had shown her...

  Her arms and legs relaxed, just slightly—

  She pressed the lever—

  The guillotine triggered.

  She felt the vibrations along her throat as the blade descended the rails.

  She shut her eyes.

  A loud clang assailed her ears, and a sharp reverberation passed down the frame into her throat.

  She opened her eyes.

  An ax was lodged between the blade and her neck. The ax tore away, ripping the guillotine blade from its tracks, splitting open the wooden vise that pinned her. The ropes that bound her arms and legs slackened, and she fell to the sand.

  Immediately she reached for the hilt of her sword.

  "Tut-tut," her captor said.

  She froze, the hilt a handspan away. She glanced at the gol whose shadow covered her.

  It was Seven the Dwarf, garbed in a leather jerkin and breeches, its thick, hairy feet bulging from openwork sandals that were a little too tight. The Dwarf shaded its round head with a black umbrella in one hand, and it held the ax in the other. The number 111 was written on the Dwarf's jerkin.

  "So now you know, by vicarious association, what it feels like to be a man," Seven said. "One small misstep with that thing you hold between your legs, and..." The Dwarf made a cutting motion across its neck with the ax.

  Ari hadn't moved. But her eyes slid to the sword.

  Seven shook its head. "Only thirty seconds and already you're missing the company of the ropes? Think of the sword as a test. You failed the test the first time. Would you like to fail again?"

  Where was Tanner?

  "Ah." Seven swayed the umbrella from side-to-side. "I see you ruminating. Perhaps expecting help from your friend? If you hoped he might inject something on the Inside, or pull you out, you're mistaken. I've shielded the area."

  She tried to talk but no sound came. Her parched throat constricted.

  A water bladder appeared at her knees. She scooped it up and drank deeply. When she'd emptied the entire thing, she stumbled to her feet.

  "You stocky little runt," Ari said. Her throat still burned. "I'll shove that ax up your—"

  "I see baking in the sun for two hours hasn't improved your constitution. Shall I reset the ropes?"

  She bit her lip. "No. I'm... I'm sorry." Apologizing wasn't her strongest suit. "I didn't mean it."

  Seven sighed. "You're almost as gutter-tongued as your father. And stubborn to boot. But your apology is accepted. You may stand. But leave the sword."

  She reluctantly slid her hand away from the hilt, and stood to her full height, making the Dwarf look like, well, a dwarf.

  "Now we may talk civilly." Seven threw the ax down in the sand, and the weapon buried up to the handle. "So, let's start over again, shall we? Pretend it is two hours earlier, and you have just arrived, and you didn't draw your sword." Seven straightened, and cleared its throat three irritable times. "Greetings, krub-in-gol-clothing. What brings you to my wonderful dunes?"

  "I want to send a message to Hoodwink."

  Seven pursed its lips. "Ah yes. That's right. Hoodwink. He's been here several times. So. The message is...?"

  "We've set the tracker in Jeremy's mansion." Ari mentally reviewed the points she needed to cover. "We've stolen the Revision Box—"

  "You have the mayor's Revision Box?" Seven interrupted. "One won't be pleased. Not at all. But I will relay the message."

  "I'm not done yet," Ari said. "But what do you mean One won't be pleased? This message is for Hoodwink alone."

  "Can't be avoided." Seven shrugged those thick shoulders. "One is all-seeing, all-knowing."

  "Who?"

  "One," Seven said. "He has his tendrils in everything."

  Ari frowned. "That still doesn't tell me who One is."

  Seven lifted its index finger. "He is One. He exists on the Inside. And the Outside. Like me. Like you."

  Well that line of questioning was getting her nowhere. Maybe Seven had contracted the gol mind disease. "Right. So, I'll finish the message. As I was saying, we plan to have the Control Room in our possession by week's end, or next week at the latest. Roughly half a day to a day from now on the Outside."

  "You plan to steal the Control Room?" Seven's eyes gleamed.

  Ari ignored the question. She was disliking this Seven more and more all the time. "Continuing with the message. We haven't heard from the children, but we've setup a pinger, and they should respond soon. Our utopia awaits." She paused, feeling a little uncomfortable that Seven would hear the next part, though she convinced herself that it didn't matter because Seven was just a gol. "Love... love you dad." She crossed her arms, and regarded the Dwarf peevishly. "And that's it."

  Seven grinned. "How sweet."

  Ari let her scowl deepen.

  "I find it interesting that you've set up a pinger." The Dwarf rubbed its chin with one hand.

  Ari didn't have time for this. "Are you going to send the message or not?"

  "I will relay your message." Seven closed its eyes.

  Ari waited. As the moments dragged on, her impatience grew. "Well?"

  "I am sending the message."

  If Seven could answer her while sending the message, she might as well see what she could learn from the thing. Her gaze drifted to the dunes and the leviathans buried in their grasp. "What's with the skeletons?"

  The Dwarf's eyes
remained closed. "A side effect of the germ. The system becomes confused, and spawns creatures meant to live in oceans that don't exist, and when these creatures appear in this place they die and rot." Seven opened its eyes. "Message sent."

  Ari waited expectantly. She and Seven looked at one another, the gol smiling that irritating smile.

  "So," she said. "What did Hoodwink say?"

  "I'll let you know in a day or so."

  "A day?"

  "I thought you were aware of the time dilation?" Seven raised an eyebrow. "Time passes slower on the Outside. Return in a day, or don't. It matters little to me."

  "How exactly do you communicate with my father?"

  Seven's smile widened. "Hoodwink restored my connection to the Core. So, I merely leave him a message, and he checks that message."

  Ari tapped her foot. "Where does he check that message?"

  "The Outside."

  Ari looked up at the sky. "Tanner, get me out of here. We came for nothing. The Dwarf can't communicate with Hoodwink."

  Seven swung that umbrella about. "Why, I most assuredly can."

  "Hoodwink's not on the Outside anymore. He's dead."

  The smile left the Dwarf's face. "Impossible."

  "I saw him die with my own eyes," Ari said.

  "I'll have to consult One about this. Impossible. Hoodwink can't die. Impossible." Seven turned away.

  She grabbed the sword.

  Seven spun around and unleashed a massive bolt of lightning. The bolt ripped the sword from her grasp, and a trailing tendril struck her smack in the torso, exiting just below her armpit. Ari was sent flying backward into the sand.

  "I am no mere messenger boy," Seven said. "I am a master golem. And the lands outside the cities are mine. I can do what I want out here. And I told you not to touch your sword. I told—"

  A collar fastened around the Dwarf's neck from behind.