The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  Fourarms careened over the ledge beside her, but also managed to grab hold of the stalagmite.

  The formation broke.

  Ari swung herself back onto the floor just as the stalagmite toppled over. Fourarms clawed at the empty air and vanished into the murky depths with the stalagmite.

  The three pursuing guards had slipped on the ice as well, and they went over the edge an instant later.

  The Direwalker would have some company.

  For a little while, anyway.

  Ari carefully made her way across the slippery surface. Black Market was only two streets away. Already she could see the bustle of activity. She doubted Fourarms would attack her now, with so many people about.

  She'd won.

  For the moment.

  Brute stood in the dark above the tattered remains of the three guardsmen.

  Current traffic density of transit center and outlying area—15%. Probability that subject would escape through the portal before Brute could reach her—95%.

  Brute scaled the smooth slope, digging its long claws into the ice like hooks. When Brute reached the street, it hid its extra appendages in its cloak, and cast its gaze down the tunnel. The city map overlaid its vision, and Brute zeroed in on the home the subject had visited moments before.

  Probability that the subject's biological mother would prove useful in the coming days—100%.

  62

  Ari crept through a dim room lit by a lone candle on the far end. A black curtain draped over a trestle by the window prevented the candlelight from being seen by anyone outside.

  A floorboard creaked beneath her.

  "Who's there?" Briar glanced up from the desk, where he sat reading a book or journal in the candlelight.

  The curtain over the trestle parted, and Tanner stepped out. "Ari."

  "Good to see you too," she said, and meant it.

  Tanner let the curtain fall behind him. "Did you get it?"

  She held up the jar. The white substance jiggled inside. "One Poultice of White, as requested."

  Briar dashed forward greedily and snatched the jar, cradling it. "We could sell this spittle-jar for a fortune. A fortune!"

  Ari squeezed her fingers between Briar's thick arms and wrenched the jar back. "It's not for selling."

  "But Ari," Briar said. "Dear niece. Why not just sell a little? A speck! We don't need all of it."

  "I think we might need it all yet," she said. "And don't call me dear." She hated it when people called her dear. It reminded her of a certain patronizing caregiver named Richard she'd employed what seemed a lifetime ago.

  "You followed the plan?" Tanner said.

  Ari laughed. "I followed the plan, Tanner."

  Tanner gave her a sharp, searching look. "Any problems?"

  She'd had to face a poisoned crossbow, run from a four-armed Direwalker, escape the city guards that waited for her at the transit center, and take a roundabout route back to this place. Oh, and she'd had to come to terms with the fact that Hoodwink and Cora had sold her to Jeremy. Actually she was still coming to terms with that, and wasn't sure she believed it. But other than all that... "No problems I couldn't handle."

  She set the jar on the table beside Briar, gave the fat man a warning look, and ducked beneath the curtain.

  Through the window, she could see Jeremy's manor grounds across the dark street. A spyglass was set on a tripod, and she peered into it. Jeremy's bedroom came into focus. The mayor had three naked gols in bed with him. Well, as naked as gols could get, all of them wearing that irremovable, thin layer of clothing over their torsos. Two of the gols were fashioned into women, and the third was shaped as a boy barely out of adolescence.

  Tanner ducked under the trestle beside her.

  "I see you've been entertaining yourself in my absence," she said.

  "Was that comment directed at me, or the mayor?" Tanner said.

  "The both of you."

  Tanner cleared his throat, and changed the subject. "Still no sign of the Direwalker army."

  "That's good, right?" Ari didn't really think so.

  "Good for us, anyway."

  Ari slid her eye from the spyglass and took in the entire mansion. She'd be going into that heart of darkness again.

  Alone this time.

  She didn't feel ready.

  She glanced at Tanner. "Sometimes I—"

  "What is it?"

  She sighed. "I'm afraid."

  He rested a hand on her upper arm. "I am too. Are you sure you're up to this?"

  She felt like falling into an embrace, but she brushed his hand away, pretending to be annoyed. She hardened her voice. "Of course I'm up to it. I didn't become leader of the New Users for my cowardice."

  "Speaking of the New Users," Tanner said. "They're having some trouble with the Dwarf. He's not as cooperative as we thought he'd be."

  Ari tapped her lips with one finger. "We need the Control Room."

  "We need the Control Room," Tanner agreed. "Though the New Users are planning to revise the Dwarf as well."

  She searched his eyes, wondering how she should propose the changes she wanted to make to the plan.

  "I met Fourarms," she said. "Brute." The spy in Jeremy's mansion had discovered the Direwalker's name.

  "What? When?" Tanner tensed beside her.

  "I stopped by my mother's place in Dhenn. The Direwalker was there when I left. It was tracking me, I think."

  "Tracking?" Tanner parted the curtain in alarm and glanced back at the doorway.

  She rested a hand on his knee. "Fourarms didn't follow me here. I was careful. They're using ravens."

  Tanner shook his head. "This operation is getting more dangerous by the minute. If Jeremy knew just how close we really were..." His eyes drifted to the house across the street. "I can't believe you stopped by your mother's. What happened to following the plan to the letter?"

  Ari exhaled a long breath. "I just wanted to see her." But how painful it had been. Hoodwink would never sell me to Jeremy!

  Tanner seemed about to say something, then he backed down. "Yes, of course. Nothing wrong with that." He steepled his fingers and tapped his chin. "How did you get away? From Fourarms."

  She was about to brag about her peerless agility and unmatched quickness or some such nonsense, but then she bowed her head.

  "Luck," she admitted.

  Tanner glanced at her lips. "Well I'm glad you're all right."

  "Sure." She hastily looked away, and let her gaze rest on the distant mansion instead. She was far from all right. "Do you think Hoodwink would have sold me to Jeremy?"

  Tanner wrinkled his brow. "What? What are you talking about?"

  "My mother told me that she and Hoodwink accepted money from Jeremy, so that the mayor would take me away and have me revised. Something about trying to save me from the Users."

  Tanner stared at her for a few seconds. "No. It doesn't strike me as something Hoodwink would do. Not at all."

  Ari nodded, though she had the feeling that he was simply telling her what she wanted to hear. "You're right. I don't know why I believed her. She just wants to drive a wedge between me and Hoodwink, for whatever reason. Hates him that much I guess."

  She studied Jeremy's mansion, not wanting to meet Tanner's eye.

  "It's not too late to steal the Control Room from another mayor, in a different city," Tanner said.

  "Actually it is too late," she said. "It's already taken us a week on the Inside to plan this heist. And it will be another day or two before we pull it off. By the time we're done, we'll only have an hour of air left on the Outside. Maybe less."

  Briar could hear everything they said beyond the curtain, but he couldn't have any idea what they were talking about. He probably still thought the Outside was the land beyond the cities.

  Tanner didn't seem convinced. "But if we went to a different city, and confronted its mayor with our fire swords, I'm sure we could take the Control Room without any problems. Not every mayor has an arm
y of Direwalkers. Nor a living carpet."

  "Can you be sure?" Ari said. "Can you?"

  Tanner was silent.

  "That's what I thought. No, we steal Jeremy's Control Room or we steal no one's. We've been planning all week." She was about to look in the spyglass again, but she remembered the grotesque lovemaking scene and turned her attention to the night sky instead. "I don't think Jeremy did this all by himself. The army of Direwalkers. Fourarms. He's got help on the Outside."

  Tanner wrinkled his forehead. "Another A.I., like the Dwarf? Or this One?"

  Ari shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. But he's not acting alone, that's for sure. We have to find out who's helping him and stop them, if we can."

  "If we can," Tanner said. "That's the key part. Like you said, we only have a few more hours of air on the Outside."

  She smiled bravely. "Well then, there's no time to lose is there?" She still hadn't found a good way to introduce her changes to the plan. Might as well just dive in. "Oh, and I've found a better way to plant you in the house, Mr. Tanner. But you'll have to leave right away."

  And she proceeded to explain her latest addition to the plan.

  Tanner didn't think it would work, and he said it was too late in the game to start making changes, but she finally convinced him that the benefits outweighed the risks. It was a small change, one that shouldn't affect things overly much, but one that could potentially have a big payoff.

  And so Tanner agreed, and left right away.

  She almost changed her mind. She almost went after him to tell him to forget it. But it was done. She had to stick to her decisions.

  But she sure hoped she was right about this.

  Because if she was wrong, and there was a good chance that she was, she'd have another life on her hands.

  Not to mention that she'd be left abandoned and alone on the Outside, with only hours to live.

  63

  Breath misting from her exertions, Cora shouldered the sack. Cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. Her staple food. She'd lived on the stuff for the past eight years, apparently.

  But it wasn't the food that was on her mind. Hardly. No, it was the day.

  And what a day it was.

  A crazy day.

  She'd never thought it would come to this.

  That crazy monster was sent after Ari, to pursue her, and potentially murder her.

  For no reason. Well, she supposed the monster did have a reason. Ari knew things. And she was on Mayor Jeremy's bad side.

  That monster was the mayor's doing.

  Well, Cora had a part to play in all this. Though she wasn't entirely sure that the part would be quite what she expected.

  She entered Mire District. Ah the smell. It wasn't much different from the smell of the other districts, though the shit-stench was magnified here because of the tight passageways and tunnels. It was a smell you never really got used to. Cora doubted any of the other residents had gotten accustomed to it, though they might claim otherwise. They probably hadn't even figured out why the candle flames never ignited the fumes, nor why they were able to survive despite the fact those very same candles choked out all the breathable air.

  She neared the murky little corner of the cave where the alcove, her house, lay so far away from everything else. A hermit's den, really.

  She turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

  The four-armed Direwalker crouched menacingly inside the entrance.

  "Why hello, Brute," Cora said.

  64

  Jeremy waltzed through his quiet halls, one hand tucked in his jacket with the fingers thrumming on the suit, the other held out before him, swaying to and fro as if he conducted a band. The thread-of-gold tentacles climbing the sleeve gleamed in the light. He hummed a tune as he walked, a bar song popular among the portal traders. The words echoed in his head. Go down dear barmaid, you're crazy as pie, I know what you want—to eat my syrupy eye! Go down dear barmaid...

  The suit was a little tight for his tastes. It was in the latest style he'd caused to become all the rage among the nobles. A "suit and tie" it was called. Black blazer, white shirt, black slacks, black shoes, black strip hanging from the bronze bitch, and voila—it was quite popular fifteen hundred years ago apparently. Jeremy liked it, anyway. But he'd have to get this one refitted.

  A servant in white livery walked the hall ahead on some errand. Jeremy nodded, offering her a savage grin. When she passed, he pinched her bum. Hard. The servant jumped, and gave him a scowl, but there was an inviting twinkle in her eye under the outrage. He flashed her a look that said, "I'll follow up that one with ten more later, you sweet-treat you."

  He avoided the reception hall, taking a circumspect route across the first floor of the house. There was a certain individual he was trying to avoid today. Why chance an uncomfortable situation? He didn't want to be forced into doing something nasty after all.

  He passed a little too near the kitchen for comfort, and could smell the sweet potatoes and honeyed hams that had been cooked up. He was starving, but there was no time for food. Not now. He had a meeting with Destiny, and he sure as heck wasn't going to be late.

  He neared the small, nondescript entrance that was hidden away in the corridor behind the reception hall. Three Direwalkers guarded the door.

  All three straightened when they saw him, and one of them said, "Sir!"

  Jeremy glanced at the Direwalker who spoke. "What did you call me?"

  The Direwalker appeared confused. "Sir?"

  Jeremy slapped the thing in the face. First one cheek, then the other. "Show me your teeth. Show them!"

  The Direwalker was looking rather angry now, but it obeyed, exposing those long fangs.

  Jeremy wrapped his thumb and forefinger around one of the fangs, and tried to break it off. "Stop moving!"

  Jeremy succeeded only in cutting himself, and gave up. "You and your insolent teeth." He stuffed his bloodied hand back into his suit, hoping the Direwalker hadn't noticed the puncture. "We shall talk about this later."

  Jeremy kicked the door open and strutted into the room.

  Five rows of terminals filled the chamber, with an aisle down the middle. Monitor gols sat at the stations, dressed in black, the all-seeing eye symbol on their chests. Three large pieces of glass hung from the front of the room. The leftmost danced with numbers and symbols. The middle display held a map. Jeremy recognized the continents of the earth, with curves drawn between the cities, indicating what seemed to be portal hops. The rightmost display had some sort of mathematical curve with words written beside it.

  Just to the left of the displays hung Jeremy's red flag of office. The middle-finger coat-of-arms set into the center had always amused him.

  "So, how's life in the Control Room today?" Jeremy said.

  Only one of the Monitor gols turned to look at him. Its eyes fidgeted to and fro. Jeremy went to that one, and the gol quickly returned to its work.

  Jeremy knelt beside Fidgety-Eyes' station. "And how are you today?"

  "Good, sir..." the Monitor said.

  "Seen anything out of the ordinary?"

  The Monitor didn't look up. There was a round display in the middle of the station that showed a sequence of concentric circles, along with some gibberish. Green dots flashed at various positions. "No sir. Nothing out of the ordinary."

  Jeremy bit down a sudden chuckle. "When's the last time you saw some action between the sheets?"

  "Excuse me, sir?" Finally Fidgety-Eyes turned toward him. Those eyes lived up to the gol's name.

  Jeremy smiled. "That's what I thought." He patted the gol on the shoulder. "As you were."

  Jeremy shuffled from station to station, moving in time to the trader tune he hummed. None of the Monitors paid him much heed.

  He shuffle-walked to the three displays at the front, and pretended to study the map of the world. He moved from display to display, still keeping up that funny, sliding gait.

  When he got to where the flag hung, his foot hit
something invisible.

  Jeremy glanced askance. None of the gols were looking at him. He casually positioned himself to the side of the hidden Box, and closed it.

  Reality stretched and folded. The stations warped away from the Monitor gols, along with the displays, and the desks, the whole room twisting like some fabric as it was sucked into the vortex sourced by the invisible Box. The entire chamber was vacuumed up, and in moments only bare walls, ceiling and floor remained. All that was left were the sconces on the walls, the Monitor gols, Jeremy, and the wooden chest at his feet. Well, and the red flag of office with its middle-finger—a little present for those who sought the Box.

  Jeremy scooped up the chest. He noted that there was no key for this one, just a latch. Convenient, he supposed. He turned to the Monitors. "Well! Quite the show, wasn't it? Move along now, move along. Nothing more to see here. You're all discharged for the day." He waved his hand dismissively. "Ta-ta."

  The Monitors watched open-mouthed as he waltzed across the empty room with the Box tucked beneath one arm.

  "Or just stand there and stare at nothing all day, see if I care." He paused beside Fidgety-Eyes. "But you my boy, you should really see about some sex."

  Jeremy spun toward the exit, but the Direwalker whose tooth he'd tried to break stood there with its arms crossed, blocking the way. The Direwalker sneered. Actually sneered.

  "What are you looking at!" Jeremy started forward, and planned to strike the insolent Direwalker with the back of his hand.

  But then a black-robed figure stepped into the room beside the Direwalker, and the very air of the chamber seemed to darken. The newcomer's face was hidden in the shadow of its hood, and only its bone-white, gnarled hands were visible. Instead of four fingers and a thumb, each hand possessed two thick, ridged digits. Electricity sparked and writhed from those digits.

  Jeremy took three steps back.

  On the robe was written a single number.

  One.

  65