The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  He grinned maliciously at Briar. "Want to see some magic?" Hoodwink released a burst of flame.

  Strangely, his brother-in-law seemed unimpressed. "I've seen the swords before, Hoodwink." He might be unimpressed, but Briar was still frightened, if the quivering in his jowls was any indication.

  But Cora was more than impressed—the look of horror on her face instantly wiped the smile from Hoodwink's lips.

  Hoodwink sheathed the blade, wondering if he should say something to her. But then there was another flicker beside him. A pile of ten rings appeared on the snowpack. Hoodwink scooped them up, glad for the distraction. Each ring had a lightning bolt etched in fine detail across the surface. He supposed Tanner had intended him to share these gifts, but Hoodwink felt he was the best qualified to use them, so he distributed the rings across the fingers of both hands. The fit was tight, and except for his pinkies he could only slide the rings on by varying degrees. Even so, he'd probably be needing a big tub of lard to get the things off again.

  He reached into all the rings at once with his mind, and he felt vitra literally blast through his being. He staggered. Never had so much lightning flowed in one person—the electricity pulsed through him in a tidal wave of fury. With these rings, and the sword, he was unstoppable.

  I am thunder.

  The ground shook, and for a moment Hoodwink thought he himself had caused the tremor, and he almost laughed.

  But the screams far to the left told him that he was not the source.

  A bomb had breached the walls of the Den.

  He pulled up the city map in his head. "This way!"

  He led his small group after the panicking crowd of women and children to Fen Street, where the sewer outlet awaited.

  The situation was bad at the outlet. The line of refugees had dissolved into a squirming mass of chaotic bodies, with everyone clawing at their neighbor and fighting to be the first inside. There was no sign of Jacob and the Dwarf.

  "Please!" one woman said, hugging a crying newborn close to her body with one arm, and gripping the hand of a little girl with the other. "I have two children. Please!" But she couldn't squeeze by.

  Without warning a wall of Direwalkers flooded onto the far end of the street and raced straight toward Hoodwink and the refugees.

  87

  Hoodwink watched one of the Direwalkers break ahead of the pack and make straight for Cora—

  He waved his hand—

  The Direwalker went spiraling away in a pinwheel of electricity.

  Cora gasped, but he ignored her, the power inside him taking over.

  He raised his hand and loosed another jolt of electricity. The blow arced from body to body, and he took down three Direwalkers with the one strike.

  He strode forward. Gray-cloak walked on his left, Green-cloak on his right.

  Hoodwink spread his arms wide and launched bolts into the onrush. He and the two New Users cut a swath of carnage through the enemy ranks. Merciless carnage. Each of them released their lightning in controlled bursts, careful not to use up their charge unnecessarily, all three of them well-versed in vitra.

  Armed Denizens joined them and defended their flanks, dealing death to any Direwalkers that evaded the lightning. Sometimes a freshly uncollared Denizen would appear, thanks to Jacob's blacksmith no doubt, but usually the inexperienced thug would exhaust his charge in the first or second strike and have to pick up a sword before the Direwalkers ripped him apart.

  Motion at the periphery of Hoodwink's vision drew his attention, and he saw a rock plummet from the sky. He watched it crash into a nearby building. More rocks came, at slow, regular intervals, crashing into streets and buildings with no regard to friend or foe. Direwalkers and Denizens alike fell beneath the random strikes.

  "Catapults," Hoodwink muttered. "Jeremy's sent catapults."

  Hoodwink turned back, leaving the New Users and Denizens to their work. He had to see Cora to safety before he returned to the fray.

  He reached his wife and grabbed her by the arm. "Time to go."

  "You're a User?" She stared at him in disbelief.

  "No," Hoodwink said. "The rings give vitra. They— ah hell, Cora, there's no time."

  He led her toward the sewer outlet. Briar tagged along just behind.

  The refugees were still fighting each other to get inside. Hoodwink tried to shove his way through, but received a punch to the face for his efforts. A hand caught Cora in the forehead and almost scratched her eye out.

  Hoodwink pulled back. "Dammit!"

  All he wanted to do was see Cora safely into the sewers, but this milling mass of humanity wouldn't let him.

  He drew the fire sword and let vitra flow into the blade. It glowed a bright red. Electricity from the rings sparked up and down the sword's surface, adding to the constrained power.

  He pointed the weapon at the refugees and amplified his voice with a gol trick.

  "YOU WILL BACK AWAY FROM THE OPENING."

  Briar shouted a warning beside him.

  Too late.

  A Direwalker leaped onto Hoodwink's back and dug its teeth into his shoulder.

  Grimacing, Hoodwink got one arm around and tucked it under the Direwalker, shoving the thing to the ground. He plunged the sword into the body and unleashed the pent-up flames.

  The Direwalker instantly dissolved into windblown ash. The snowpack below melted right to the cobblestone.

  Hoodwink turned back toward the milling crowd. A few were glancing nervously at him, but what he'd done only spurred the remainder to even more frantic pushing and shoving.

  "I SAID, YOU WILL BACK AWAY FROM THE OUTLET. I WANT AN ORDERLY LINE, NOW!"

  His threat had to seem real for this to work. He aimed the red-hot weapon at the refugees, letting more and more vitra into the blade until it shook with power. Plumes of smoke billowed from the scorching metal. The handle was growing hot now, too. His fingers started to sizzle.

  The refugees screamed, and clawed madly at those in front of them. But not a one moved to obey his command. Not a one.

  Hoodwink sighed. This wasn't turning out the way he thought it would.

  He started to lower the sword when Cora stepped between him and the refugees. Her eyes were red and her cheeks glistened with tears.

  "Cora..." He immediately let the blade wink out.

  "Leave them alone, Hoodwink," Cora said. "Just leave them alone, you hear? You'll have to cut me down first!"

  "I—" He wanted to tell her that she didn't have to worry, that of course he was never going to harm the refugees, and that he just wanted to impart some order.

  But he never had the chance.

  Because one of those falling rocks smashed the ground right in front of him.

  Hoodwink was sent sprawling, and when he got to his feet again, there was no sign of Cora.

  88

  Hoodwink stumbled to the other side of the large rock.

  Cora was there, unconscious, her body crushed underneath from the hips down.

  She wouldn't have been there if he hadn't aimed his blade at the refugees.

  It was his fault.

  "A shard!" he shouted. "Someone bring a healing shard!" Why hadn't Tanner sent any Inside?

  But no shard could heal this.

  He fell to his knees beside her. "Cora. My Cora."

  He dropped the blade, wrapped his arms around the rock, and hefted for all he was worth. Even with his gol strength he couldn't move the thing.

  Maybe he could break apart the boulder with his sword. He retrieved the weapon.

  Cora awoke just then.

  "Hood." Her voice was little more than a whimper.

  "Cora. I'm going to get this rock off you, I will!" He hefted the sword, preparing to jab it into the boulder, hoping against hope that fragments wouldn't fly into her upper body.

  "No," Cora said. "It's too late."

  "Cora, I—"

  "Stop. Please."

  He dropped the sword, and knelt beside her. She was right.<
br />
  The sights and sounds of the battle faded around him. There was only her. "I'm so sorry."

  "I didn't know you were... a User," she said.

  Hoodwink forced a smile. "My Cora." He clenched her hand in his own, and held it above his heart. "My Cora."

  "You wouldn't have done it, would you, Hoodwink? Killed them?"

  "Of course not, Cora. Of course not. I was about to stop. You didn't have to step in front of me. You didn't." Hoodwink couldn't help but sob then. It was his fault. "I'm so sorry."

  "I knew... knew you wouldn't do it." She smiled sadly. "I never stopped loving you. Though I hated you, I loved you. It's a strange thing, isn't it? To hate someone yet love them all the same. A strange strange thing." She coughed, and blood smeared her chin.

  "I love you too, Cora," Hoodwink said. "I've always loved you. Despite everything. Despite my faults. And what we did. I wish things were different. I wish—" He bowed his head. He was so weak. And ashamed that she saw his weakness, these tears of his.

  Cora smiled briefly. "No Hoodwink, I'm the one who's sorry. I pushed you away when you needed me most." She coughed more blood. "Tell her. Tell Ari, when you bring her back, tell her I'm sorry. It was wrong what we did. So wrong. And remember your promise. Hear me? Destroy the world if you have to. Destroy everything. But you bring her back."

  Hoodwink could scarcely see for the stinging in his eyes. "I will. I swear it. By everything I hold dear, I swear it will be so."

  "You—" Cora's eyes became fixed, dilated.

  And so ended his wife.

  Hoodwink shut Cora's eyes with his thumbs. Maybe he could return to the Outside and find her. She wasn't a gol like him, so there was a chance she hadn't died. That she was waking up right now in a pod of goo. But by the time he disbelieved reality, used the terminal to match her DNA and Output Signal to the pod that contained her, and hunted her down, the iron golems would have her. Assuming her pod wasn't in a depressurized section.

  No. It truly was too late.

  "Goodbye my love." Hoodwink stood. He noticed Briar standing beside him, looking sad, so sad. Briar glanced up, and then backed away. The fat man must have seen Hoodwink's expression.

  "I will not sell her life cheaply." Hoodwink turned around and stalked into the melee. Denizens continued to defend against the Direwalkers, though their ranks were quickly thinning. Hoodwink decided to change that.

  He fought with lightning. Direwalkers flew away from him like confetti. He used up the power in the rings recklessly, and one by one those metal bands of vitra failed him until they all went blank. But by then he had retreated to the rock where Cora lay in death. Briar was there, and he handed Hoodwink the fire sword.

  Direwalkers rushed Hoodwink all at once, thinking he had lost his powers.

  They were sorely mistaken.

  The gols flew backward in flames.

  Hoodwink advanced anew, cutting a fiery swath through the enemy ranks. He let so much vitra flow into that sword that the blade became white, blindingly so. It hurt his own eyes to look at it, this power that was like the sun in his hands. And so he fought, a bearer of ruthless justice, a Direwalker killing machine. If vengeance had a corporeal form, he was it, and he made certain that the Direwalkers rued the day they ever crossed paths with Hoodwink Cooper.

  He weaved between the defenders, protecting them, dealing death to the attackers with his blinding sword. Rocks continued to fall from the sky around him. He ignored the deadly barrage. Let the rocks fall. He had killing to do.

  There was no sign of Gray-cloak and Green-cloak. Likely the New Users had used up their charge and died. Either way, it didn't matter all that much to him. Not anymore.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he spun around, sword raised high.

  Hoodwink restrained himself at the last moment, because it wasn't a Direwalker. Just a cowering old man, hand raised over his head in whimpering defense.

  In his fury he had almost struck down Jacob.

  Hoodwink lowered the blade.

  "Where were you?" Jacob said, shielding his eyes from the bright blade with one hand.

  Fury edged Hoodwink's voice. "You weren't in the Control Room."

  Jacob recoiled a step. "We were. You must have missed us. We picked up the Control Room first, then the Revision Room, then the Dwarf, and we looped back."

  Some of the fury ebbed from Hoodwink. If he'd waited just a little longer back at the Warehouse, maybe Cora would be alive right now.

  My fault.

  In Jacob's other hand, a chain led to the bronze bitch at the Dwarf's neck. Three other New Users acted as escort, and even now fended off Direwalkers with lightning. Those wrinkled old men wouldn't last long though, not at the rate they were expending their charge. There were some swordsmen with them too at least, and they hewed down those Direwalkers that got too close. Two men in the group acted as pack mules—one held the Control Room Box, the other the Revision Box.

  A rock from the sky landed a little close for comfort, and sprayed the group with bricks from a nearby building.

  "How's the sewage outlet?" Jacob said above the fighting.

  A Direwalker came at Hoodwink, and he sliced off its arms, then its legs, then eviscerated it, then dug out its eyes, then cut out its tongue, and finally chopped off its head.

  "That bad, huh?" Jacob said.

  All I can do now is save our daughter. That's all that matters.

  Hoodwink turned around and wordlessly led Jacob to the outlet.

  There were no other Denizen defenders left standing, not in this area, and so without Hoodwink to defend them, the refugees who hadn't yet made it inside the outlet were being picked off one by one by the Direwalkers.

  Hoodwink immediately took the battle to the Direwalkers, and the New Users joined him. Together they forced the attackers back, and guarded the refugees.

  When the last of the surviving women and children had gone through the outlet, Hoodwink shouted at Jacob over his shoulder. "Go!"

  Hoodwink released a final, large surge of flame and then stumbled into the outlet after the others. He lit the way with his sword, which had cooled now to a gentler yellow. His fingers were moderately burned, but he ignored the pain.

  The ceiling was low, the passage tight, made of mudbrick. Some sections of the tunnel wall had collapsed to reveal frozen dirt. The floor was made of dark ice—the frozen excrement of the city's ancestors—though the top layer had been churned to slush. Beyond Jacob and the New Users, Hoodwink could make out the fringes of the milling crowd of humanity that had gone before them.

  Jacob ignited a torch. Good. So Hoodwink wouldn't have to light the entire way with his fire sword.

  The skittering sound of claws drew Hoodwink's attention behind him.

  A Direwalker leaped at Hoodwink—

  He slit the Direwalker open with a swing of the blade.

  Bad move. Blood sprayed all over Hoodwink's face and body, blinding him. He frantically wiped the stuff from his eyes—blood could really sting.

  He blinked away the pain and tears in time to see more Direwalkers racing into the outlet.

  89

  Hoodwink fought frantically in that cramped space, bringing down Direwalkers left and right, but they just kept on coming. He was only now just beginning to realize how weak his arms were, and how close he was to losing the mental focus necessary to draw vitra through the sword. Even gol bodies obeyed the laws of the illusory world, for the most part, and while unlimited vitra was one thing, being able to use it was another thing entirely.

  He fought mechanically, waiting for someone to come and relieve him.

  "Jacob!" Hoodwink cried.

  No one came. Soon his handiwork had created a pile of dead bodies. He used the pile like a rampart, and ducked behind it, poking and slashing at any Direwalkers that came near, glad for the momentary respite from full-on fighting.

  "Jacob! Some help here!"

  The press of Direwalkers proved too great, and the attackers forced
that wall of bodies right down.

  Hoodwink retreated. I have to survive. For Ari!

  "Jacob!" Hoodwink said.

  He was glad when he finally heard Jacob's voice behind him. "Hoodwink! Can you seal the passage with that sword of yours?"

  "What?" Hoodwink parried a claw to the face. "What about Cap and Al? And anyone else who's still out there?" Maybe Tanner.

  "It's too late for them!" Jacob said. "Seal the passage! You can't hold them off forever!"

  "I just need a break!" Hoodwink split open another Direwalker. "Send one of the others to help me!"

  "Hoodwink, the men are exhausted!" Jacob said. "I'm exhausted. Seal the passage while you still can!"

  Hoodwink refused to give up. It didn't seem right to abandon anyone else who might still be alive in the Den.

  "Hoodwink." Jacob's voice was pleading now. "If we fall, the refugees die. You hear me?"

  The refugees die.

  And if I die, too, Ari's death becomes final.

  Hoodwink ducked a swipe. Too slow. It caught him just above the brow, spilling fresh blood into his eye. He blinked frantically, but he knew this couldn't continue.

  I have to survive.

  "Cover me!" Hoodwink said.

  Jacob squeezed beside him and released a half-hearted bolt of lightning.

  With one eye open, Hoodwink hacked at the low ceiling in front of him, releasing a surge of flames with each strike. The roof collapsed in an avalanche of bricks that completely sealed off the tunnel and raised a waist-high cloud of dust.

  There was quiet for a time, the only sound the trickle of loose dirt from the ceiling.

  And then Hoodwink heard a scraping from beyond the rubble, followed by a muffled clink. More scraping, more clinks—the Direwalkers on the other side were already digging.