The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  Hoodwink's face broke into a wide grin. "Thought you'd see it my way."

  Ari kissed Tanner's forehead, and stood. "I'm coming with you, dad."

  Hoodwink glanced at her, and there was tenderness in his eyes. "No Ari, I want you to stay here. You've been through a terrible ordeal and you need time to rest up."

  Ari crossed her arms. "Dad, I'm going."

  Hoodwink sighed. "Tanner was right about you. You've grown rash and stubborn. I forbid you from coming Inside with me, I do."

  Ari felt her lips twitch in a half-smile. "Try and stop me. Once you're gone, I'll just send myself Inside after you. And if the children interfere, I'll do the very thing you just threatened, and leave this station behind for a new one. I'll eventually make it Inside no matter what you say or do."

  Hoodwink glanced at Tanner. "You love him, don't you." It wasn't a question.

  "I do." Oddly Ari wasn't ashamed to admit it. The words were easier to say with Tanner out cold, of course. She'd been used to hiding her feelings all her life. But after where she'd been, what she'd gone through, she knew how important life was, knew that hiding your feelings from people got you nowhere, and that doing so hurt them, actually hurt them. "I love Tanner. And I love you, dad. Which is why I'm coming with you."

  Hoodwink smiled the strangest smile, and he looked away, blinking rapidly. "I'm so proud of you." His voice sounded choked. "This is why I love humanity. This is why, right here. My daughter. She's the one who's saving humanity, she is. Just by the sheer virtue of being here."

  He came over and gave her the biggest bear hug she'd ever had.

  Hoodwink sat at a nearby desk and tethered himself to a terminal. He glanced at Stanson. "Well you heard the girl. Send us in!'

  Ari tethered herself in beside him.

  120

  Though Tanner and his group had lightning and flame, the enemy just kept coming. Surrounded and cut off from any support, only seven of Tanner's men were left standing.

  It had been a mistake to charge into the reception hall after he took down the guard, but the temptation to make a rush for the main stairs had been too great. The guard sounded the alarm before falling, drawing the other Direwalkers, and as Tanner battled his way forward the bright red carpet transformed into a huge tentacled thing that picked up two of his men and squeezed their entrails out both ends. It then positioned its looming body squarely in front of the stairs, leaving just enough room for fresh Direwalkers to race past.

  Tanner and his men were trapped. Direwalkers on one side, the Living Carpet on the other.

  So they did what most trapped men do. They fought. None of them meant to barter their lives cheaply. Tanner least of all.

  Tanner hacked down a Direwalker and spun in time to catch a tentacle making a grab for him. He scorched the thing with flame. The tentacle thrashed away, but another shot forward to replace it.

  Cap chopped down on the new tentacle with his fiery blade. The severed end flailed about.

  A Direwalker lunged at Cap from behind.

  Tanner launched lightning from one of his rings and sent the Direwalker reeling across the room.

  A Direwalker landed on Tanner's back, clawing. Another Direwalker came at him from the side, this one wielding a sword. Not a fire sword, but it would kill Tanner just the same.

  He spun to the right, and the incoming Direwalker accidentally sliced into the one that clung to his back. He flung the injured Direwalker away and brought his sword down on the other, taking its head.

  There came a scream to his right, and he turned to see a Direwalker tear out a man's eyes. Tanner plunged his blade into the attacker's throat and was covered in a spray of blood. The eyeless man toppled beside the Direwalker.

  Tanner had only six men standing with him, now.

  He fought on, fending blows from the Living Carpet, hewing down Direwalkers. A rampart of dead bodies and severed tentacles was building in a half-circle around him. He didn't think his small group could hold out for much longer. He hoped Al's team had taken the initiative and used this diversion to make an attempt on One. Because it looked like nobody in Tanner's group would get the chance now.

  He'd warned these men that this would lead to their doom.

  This wasn't his fault. It wasn't.

  Another man went down.

  Five left.

  The screams coming out of Jeremy's bedchamber were hideous.

  Steeped in sweat, Briar was slumped against the wall of the alcove, where he hadn't moved since Al and the others had made their madcap dash. Briar had sat here the whole time, just listening. At least he'd stopped crying.

  He peered past the rim of the alcove. No Direwalkers were coming out of the bedchamber anymore. They were busy killing Al and the others, undoubtedly. Briar was certain he could pick out the timbre of Al's voice in those screams.

  "The whoremongers always win," Briar said to himself. "The whoremongers always win." The mantra was meant to calm him. It had always worked in the past—he often used it before his haggling sessions with the southern merchants.

  It did nothing for him today.

  He swallowed hard, and forced himself to stand. His limbs trembled under his own weight, and the weight of the pipe bombs. Not for the first time he regretted the life he'd chosen for himself, one devoid of most physical activity. The only muscles he'd ever worked were those of his belly. The only marathons he'd ever participated in had names such as all-you-can-eat and buffet.

  He wasn't heroic. He wasn't anything even close to a hero. He'd already admitted to himself that he was a spineless coward who should've stayed in the sewers and barricaded himself in a slushy wall of shit.

  Cora's ghost was watching him right now, seeing him for the coward he was, and that made everything oh so much worse. He could feel her scornful gaze on him, and he didn't like it.

  Go away, Cora!

  Damn it. He wished she were still alive.

  She had to know that if he went into Jeremy's bedchamber swinging his fire sword that he'd be cut down by the Direwalkers. Sure, he'd practiced a little bit with Al and Jacob. They taught him how to draw vitra through the sword, and how to throw flames. But that wasn't good enough. He wasn't a fighter. He didn't have it in him. His methods of attack were through subterfuge, and subversion.

  He just couldn't make himself go into that room.

  He glanced around the rim of the alcove and saw a fresh spray of blood issue from Jeremy's bedchamber, matched to another scream.

  He ducked behind the alcove's edge.

  Definitely couldn't go into that room.

  Maybe he'd just cower here all night. Yes. That sounded good.

  But if he did that, Cora would never let him live it down. Cora's dead, you fool. And even if she was watching, so what? It's not like she could do anything to him.

  Briar closed his eyes.

  If he didn't do something to help, he'd never be able to let himself live it down.

  He could do this. He could go into that room.

  For Cora.

  For himself.

  He took three deep breathes and drew the heavy blade. Vitra filled him, giving him courage. The sword brightened and the shadows fled before it. A fire-spitting raven etched the steel, and a bunch of tiny cinders trailed from its wings.

  The whoremongers always win.

  He slipped into the hallway and edged forward, step by hesitant step. He came closer to Jeremy's bedchamber with each moment. The doorway loomed like a great gaping pit into hell.

  When he was almost at the entrance, a fresh gush of red fluid poured out, soaking into the carpet. It was quite literally a gush, as if someone had tipped over a barrel filled to the brim with blood just inside.

  Briar immediately spun to the left and proceeded stiffly down the hallway leading directly away from the bedchamber, toward the reception hall. He didn't look back, and he rounded the first bend that presented itself. His legs gave out and he dropped to the floor, falling against the balcony that overlook
ed the reception hall.

  He lay there on the balustrade, panting and sweating, listening to the clamor of battle from the first floor below.

  Filled with self-loathing, he set the sword down beside him. He lowered the satchel to the floor.

  He didn't deserve to hold these implements of war.

  He was just a coward after all.

  "On me!" Tanner's voice drifted up from below.

  Tanner. The man had been sliced in half by Brute and he'd come back from the dead whole again. There was a hero, if anyone. There was a man who could finish this, if anyone.

  Briar peered over the edge of the balcony.

  That giant carpet of Jeremy's dominated the scene below. It had transformed into a terrible tentacled monster about the size of a small house. It reminded Briar of the squids that were sewn onto the tapestries of this place in profusion, though this one was so tall its head nearly reached the balcony. The creature blocked the main stairs and harassed Tanner, Cap and the other two men who were still alive.

  Tanner and his men couldn't just retreat, because Direwalkers hemmed them in with swords and claws from behind. The group of four had its hands full, that's for sure.

  Tanner grabbed something from the satchel over his shoulder, bit down on that something, and hurled it at the carpet.

  A pipe bomb.

  The tentacled shape batted the bomb right back at Tanner. The explosive detonated in midair before reaching them, launching Tanner and his men across the room along with some of the Direwalkers. Tanner and Cap stumbled drunkenly to their feet. The other two men remained down.

  With a score of Direwalkers at its side, the tentacled creature left its position by the stairs to bear down on Tanner.

  All of a sudden Briar realized what it was he had to do with crystal clear clarity.

  If he was to perform one act of courage in his life, it was this.

  Finally, a chance to redeem himself. Finally, a chance to play his part. Striking from the shadows like he was always meant to do.

  He lifted the heavy satchel filled with pipe bombs.

  Movement on the far end of the balcony drew his eye, and Briar started.

  Apparently he'd been seen, because a Direwalker had rounded the bend and was heading straight for him, its mouth open in a long-toothed snarl.

  121

  "Wait, I'm one of you," Briar said, but then realized he only incriminated himself by talking because he didn't have the needle-length canines.

  He dropped the satchel and groped the floor for the fire sword, not taking his eyes from the Direwalker. His mind blanked. He found the sword, but couldn't remember how to draw vitra, not from the blade, nor the rings, nor even from his own uncollared body. He just stared at the approaching Direwalker.

  It crouched low, coming at him on all fours like a cat stalking a mouse.

  Lightning. I have lightning.

  But he couldn't find it.

  Briar fumbled inside his coat, mindlessly pulling out a clove of garlic basted in cinnamon he'd stowed there. He held it up, but the Direwalker seemed undeterred.

  Briar threw the cinnamon garlic at the Direwalker. The clove struck the thing in the face.

  The garlic bounced away, leaving a smoldering scar where it touched. The Direwalker hissed in pain.

  Can't believe that actually worked, Briar thought.

  The realization of the Direwalker's mortality snapped him out of his daze, and he found the illusive vitra. The spark was buried deep in the back of his mind, and time seemed to slow as he fanned that spark.

  Briar watched in fascination as the muscles of the Direwalker bunched in its neck and arms at a snail's pace. Its legs bobbed backward, then forward again, propelling the Direwalker off the ground in a slow-motion leap.

  The spark in Briar's mind expanded, flaring down his neck, through his torso and down his limbs to the extremities of his body. It pulsed through him, running up against the barrier of his flesh, waiting for the floodgates to open.

  Briar obliged those floodgates.

  Time snapped back with a vengeance as a lightning bolt tore through his upraised palm. The brightness was blinding, the thunderclap deafening.

  The recoil sent Briar sprawling.

  He clambered to his feet, blinking away the treelike afterimage of the lightning bolt from his eyes. His hearing had dulled, replaced by a high-pitched ringing.

  He looked for the Direwalker but found only a large pile of dust on the floor beside him.

  The thing had disintegrated.

  Inside Briar, the spark was utterly spent. He'd made an amateur's mistake, wasting all his charge on a single opponent.

  Ah well, he still had ten lightning rings, and each of those was fully charged. And he still had the fire sword. He picked up the blade and felt vitra calling to him, ready to obey his every whim.

  Now if only the whoremongering weapon were lighter.

  He sheathed the ponderous blade and glanced at the Direwalker's dust once more. On an impulse, he ground his heel into the remains.

  "That's what you get for messing with Briar the Direwalker slayer." His voice sounded distant because of the ringing in his ears, but he didn't care too much about that. No injury could have lessened the elation he felt.

  He wasn't a coward after all.

  He would play his part in this.

  He would make Cora proud.

  He lifted the bomb-laden satchel and brought it to the balcony's rim.

  Tanner and Cap were the only two still left standing, and they fought for their lives against ten Direwalkers.

  The Living Carpet hung back. It wanted to let the Direwalkers soften him and Cap up, apparently.

  A flash and a thunderclap came from one of the balconies upstairs. Tanner hadn't thought anyone else from his group had survived. Maybe it was someone from Al's team. He didn't have time to ponder it now—three sword-wielding Direwalkers came right at him.

  Tanner released flames, slashed, diced, stabbed and slashed again. He moved almost mechanically, feeling dead tired. That last explosion had nearly knocked the life from him, and strength was taking a long time to flow back into his veins.

  From the corner of his eyes he saw something fall from the balcony just above the Living Carpet. A stream of fire followed.

  Tanner realized what was happening too late.

  Moving with gol speed, he pulled Cap behind a pillar as the explosion tore through the hall. A wave of flame roared past on either side, and Tanner felt the blistering heat. The blackened bodies of Direwalkers bounced from the far wall. Cap became a dead weight in his arms, dragging Tanner downward.

  When the flames subsided he glanced at Cap. The man's eyes were closed, and though he was still breathing, the right half of his face was severely burned. Tanner had been too slow, then. He lowered Cap to the marble and searched Cap's satchel and his own for healing shards. There were none left. Tanner had given them all away.

  He sighed. "Sorry Cap."

  The unconscious man gave no sign he heard.

  Tanner peered past the pillar.

  There was a crater in the floor where the Living Carpet had been. Pieces of the carpet itself were strewn across the reception hall, some of them still burning. Tables and other furniture had been blasted aside and lay piled against the walls alongside blackened bodies.

  The Carpet was gone, and there were no more Direwalkers left to fight.

  Tanner slumped against the pillar. He'd survived. But he'd lost all his men.

  It wasn't supposed to end like this. They were supposed to make it to Jeremy's bedchamber before men started dying. They'd trusted Tanner with their lives, trusted that he wouldn't let them die for nothing. And he'd failed them.

  Because now there was no chance to complete the plan. A single man couldn't overpower One alone.

  But he wasn't alone.

  Tanner glanced at the balcony where the bomb had dropped. To his amazement he saw Briar standing there. The man saluted.

  Tanner f
elt his jaw drop. "Well I'll be hoodwinked..."

  Loud, bulky footsteps filled the reception hall. Briar immediately ducked out of sight.

  On the rightmost branch of the main stairs, a massive shape lumbered down from the second floor. The marble cracked and chipped beneath its weight.

  The towering Direwalker halted on the platform that separated the upper run of stairs from the lower. It flexed its four arms, cracked the muscles of its neck, and then drew its four scimitars all at the same time.

  Tanner felt hatred rising from a wellspring deep inside him. Hatred, anger, and outrage. The emotions filled him with a surge of renewed energy.

  Ari's killer had arrived.

  122

  Ari flickered into existence inside an unfinished basement. In the floor beside her, wide marble steps led away into darkness—to the sewers, judging from the smell. There was a tracker here, the metallic sphere flashing blue beside the stairs. This was the closest Ari and Hoodwink could come to Jeremy's mansion, because One had the place shielded, according to the children.

  She could hear fighting outside. The clash of steel. The clap of thunder. The roar of flames.

  The screams of death.

  Hoodwink appeared at her side. He wore his usual Inside outfit—red boots, black pants, a nobleman's green tunic.

  "This way!" he said.

  She sprinted up the stairs with her father to the front door of the house. She dashed outside, crossed the courtyard, and hurried onto the street.

  The night was lit up with flame and lightning. Strung out in front of the gates to Jeremy's mansion, several groups of uncollared men and women fought with fire swords, dealing death to the Direwalkers. The snowpack was trampled to slush, and broken bodies were scattered everywhere, human and Direwalker alike. The overwhelmed defenders were doing their best to hold off the besiegers, but unfortunately more Direwalkers, clustered in groups of ten to twenty, joined the fray all the time. It seemed that every Direwalker in the city was converging here. Oddly enough, no Direwalkers emerged from Jeremy's estate itself.