The Ascension

by Kailin Gow

  “We came after you. You’ve been gone for more than a week.”

  “A week?” Henry Word seemed puzzled for a moment. “A conundrum, certainly. I expected time to run a little differently here, of course.

  Hypothetically speaking, I suppose the effect could b e exacerbated by the nature of this bubble. Yes, that must be it.”

  He said it as though it were only something to be mildly annoyed about, and not the cause of a major rescue effort that had already seen Gem shot with arrows, attacked by satyrs, and captured by an evil queen.

  “We’ve been al over Myriad looking for you.”

  “Percy sent you, I take it? Yes, he would see sending you as the most expedient way of looking for me.”

  “And we’ve found you,” Gem said. “Now, we’ve just got to get you out of there.”

  “Gem, I-”

  She tapped the icy shield. It rang like a crystal wine glass, but seemed much harder. To test it, Gem tried kicking it, but the only result was a bruised foot.

  “Kat?”

  Kat stepped forward and pointed one finger at the shield, the way she had when forming the tunnel. Torrid heat poured off it, but nothing much happened beyond that. Kat looked down at her finger, shook it, and then started rooting around in her book.

  “There’s got to be an answer here

  “There’s got to be an answer here somewhere. It would help if it had an index.” She started flicking through it, but didn’t seem to be having much luck. In the meantime, Gem decided to try more drastic action.

  “Stand back from the shield,” she instructed her father, who took a hesitant step backwards.

  “Gem, I real y don’t think you understand…

  “Deleterious.”

  Gem braced herself for the shower of ice shards the ruler word’s effects would probably induce. It turned out though that she need not have bothered, because although the ice oscillated and shuddered, it didn’t give way. It was obviously more resilient than it looked.

  “Kat,” Gem asked. “Any luck with that book?”

  “Not so far. If I can just find the right bit…”

  “Gem.”

  “Wel , keep going. We can’t just leave him there as part of some nefarious plan to…”

  “Gem!”

  This time, Gem stopped at the sound of her father’s voice. Henry Word looked at her with a level of seriousness that made it patent that she wasn’t going to like what he said next.

  “Gem, the shield wil dissolve on its own once this job is done. Until then, I can’t leave.” Gem was recalcitrant.

  “There has to be a way. We’ve just got to find it, that’s al .”

  Henry Word shook his head.

  “Gem, you aren’t understanding me. What I mean is that, until this is done, I’m not going to leave.”

  Gem had thought about a lot of possibilities for this moment, because meeting her father again was bound to include a great deal of emotion. She had been prepared for acceptance, sadness, even anger, but not for a simple refusal to come back.

  “Is this because I’ve spent the last couple of months ignoring you?” Gem asked.

  “What? No. You must not think that. It was understandable that you would want time to think, Gem.”

  “Then what i s it about?” Gem demanded.

  “Does it have anything to do with why you’re suddenly standing?” An idea occurred to her. “Did the Winter Queen lure you here with promises of healing you, then force you to work for her?”

  “I’m not being forced to do anything,” he assured her, “and the two are slightly different matters. Let’s deal with the question of why I am here first. Mr. Zusak, you have sharp eyes, and a mind to match it, so tel me what you see in here.”

  “Um…” there was a little trace of Jack’s old nervousness in that, and Gem was actual y happy to see it. “I suppose it looks a lot like the set up you have to keep the Wordwick games running.” Henry Word nodded, turning back to the nearest machine for a moment in order to make an adjustment.

  “That’s because it is identical. You see, there is a problem with my Wordwick games.”

  “What sort of problem?” Gem asked, though a hint of trepidation worked through her even as she asked it. Whatever could bring her father to this spot in the Winter Queen’s castle had to be bad.

  “They are a little too wel -designed,” Henry Word explained. “That is not some attempt to aggrandize my skil s as a game designer, or even my other, more esoteric skil s. In fact, it is something I am ashamed of. The game was meant to have links to other worlds simply to show them in al their variegated glory, but the worlds there were never meant to be more than copies.”

  Gem frowned.

  “Anachronia is no copy, and you didn’t send us there by accident.”

  “Your trip to Anachronia was a special case.

  There, I was sending you to help with something real, and you did it through the pods we had designed.

  What I am saying is that somehow, even the normal version of the game, which i s meant to be just a game, has become tangled up with other worlds.”

  “So you get a realistic game?” Kat interrupted. “How is that a bad thing?” Gem got it though.

  “Kat, if the real worlds are linked to the game, then what happens if something goes wrong with the servers supporting it? Or what about if people decide to do something stupid, because it’s ‘just a game’?”

  Gem knew that Kat would understand that one. She’d been wildly enthusiastic for the fray when she had thought that Anachronia was just a game, but had gained much more of an aversion to violence once she started to suspect that it was real.

  “How bad could this be?” Gem asked.

  “Most of the time, the effects should be benign,” her father reassured her through the ice shield. “It wouldn’t take much though for whole worlds to be damaged. That is far too much responsibility for what is supposed to be a game. I should have known that things were going wrong when it attracted the five of you. I take it you know by now that you are al special?”

  “You knew?” Gem asked. Henry Word had already turned back to his machines, making yet more adjustments. It made Gem want to berate him for his silence. “Dad, answer me. Are you tel ing me that you knew about us al along?”

  “I wil explain things ful y when there is time, Gem,” Henry Word cal ed, from a computer. “For now, there is so much work to do. I have the flaw to deal with, and there is this war brewing. I’ve promised the Winter Queen that I wil help with one or two things there, of course.”

  “Help?” Gem could hardly believe it. The Winter Queen wanted to conquer worlds, to blight everything she touched with her cold, and here was Gem’s father, helping her? “How has she managed to persuade you to help, when she’s going to do so much damage?”

  “She gave him back his legs,” Jack guessed.

  Gem had to admit, it made sense. She could only imagine what Henry Word might give to undo the damage done to him in Anachronia. Even so, the price seemed like a high one. Did he real y plan to pay for the al eviation of his own suffering by adding to that of others? After everything Gem had heard about him, and seen of him, she could hardly believe it.

  Except that part of her could. Henry Word had been so reclusive that Gem and the others had not known about his injuries until they met him. He spent his time hiding from it, and Gem could easily believe that at least some part of her father would jump at the chance to undo that damage. Stil , she clung to the hope that maybe he didn’t know the truth about what it would cost.

  “Dad, you do know the sort of damage she plans to do, don’t you? How many people she plans plans to do, don’t you? How many people she plans on hurting?”

  To Gem’s surprise, not to mention her utter disappointment, Henry Word nodded.

  “Of course I know. I probably know better than you do, Gem, but I gave my word. The Winter Queen gave me back my legs in exchange for my help, and I cannot go back on it. My word should be
sacrosanct, or what am I?”

  “What are you if you do this?” Gem countered, and she saw Henry Word wince. Stil , he shook his head.

  “I won’t discuss this further, Gem. I gave the Winter Queen my word, and now I must do what she asks.”

  Gem

  turned

  away

  from

  him

  in

  disappointment. It left her facing the tal , white-haired figure of the Winter Queen, standing at the other end of the hal way, regal and deadly. How long had she been standing there? Why hadn’t her father said something? The Winter Queen flicked a hand, col apsing the tunnel Kat had carved and cutting off their escape, but Gem found herself thinking more about her father. Was it possible that everything he had just said had been for the Winter Queen’s benefit? Did he real y mean any of it?

  More to the point, would Gem get a chance to find out before the Winter Queen froze her solid?

  Chapter 18

  “I am disappointed in you, my children, though your method of making this place accessible at least shows you are making some progress in your studies.”

  The Winter Queen took a step towards her unruly offspring, and towards the girl who had caused so many problems with her nephew. At least that had proven to be of some use, in the end. Her eyes fixed on the so-cal ed Queen of Anachronia. It would be so much easier to amalgamate the Kingdoms without her in the way. Yes.

  A thought sent ice spiraling up around the girl’s ankles, but it paused as another mind sought to command it. Jack, her Jack Frost, actual y stepped between them.

  “You won’t hurt Gem.”

  “Are you in a position to make such an injunction, my son? Do you think that you have the power to stop me?”

  “I can try.”

  The Winter Queen’s lip curled, and she looked past her son to where Gem stood.

  “It seems that you have the same way with the young men as your mother. Such an innocuous looking thing, and yet you have them circling you looking for the slightest hint of amorous interest.

  Chelsea…” the Winter Queen pushed her son aside easily, freezing his feet to the floor as he tried to step back into the way. “Chelsea strung my brother along, insinuating that she would love him before casting him aside for your father.”

  With that, she looked to Henry Word, stil trapped behind his shield of ice. He was lucky that she stil needed his expertise.

  “It would have been so much simpler had he not interfered. There would have been a true royal wedding between my brother and your mother, and the two kingdoms would have joined amicably, with none of this bloodshed. You know the worst part, though? My brother was so smitten that he ran off and found another Anachronian woman to replace her. The fool.”

  The Winter Queen decided not to think about her long dead sibling. Instead, she looked to her children. Jack was busy straining against the hold the ice had on him. The Winter Queen turned to her other child. Since she wasn’t making any move to interfere, there wasn’t any need to freeze her too.

  Who said that she couldn’t be kind?

  “Tel me, Katherine, what is the advantage of Anachronia to us?”

  “What?” her daughter demanded. “You’re in the middle of a vil ainous oration and you’re pausing for a pop-quiz?”

  The Winter Queen gave her a furious look, and Kat cringed.

  “Al right. I suppose it… it’s the technology, right? There isn’t much.”

  “Which makes it less painful for our kind than the world you grew up in. Exactly.” The Winter Queen nodded, then stepped over to Gem, patting her amiably on the shoulder. “You could end this peacefully. Abdicate now in favor of me. Things would be so much simpler.”

  The Winter Queen paused, waiting for an answer. Waiting, in truth, for the spineless little half human to fal to her knees in gratitude rather than fight. Seconds passed.

  “No? Wel , it was only a question of politeness anyway. My armies are already marching, by my edict. A force wil fight against the Summer Court, but if they do not succeed, it is hardly important. They are a diversion. With the Summer Court too distracted to interfere, my nephew’s force wil slip through easily to take Anachronia. Dealing with the Summer Court wil then be a mere encore to the main performance. I’m sure that Devon wil make me proud there too.”

  The hurt expression on the girl’s face was a delight to the Winter Queen.

  “Oh, did you think that your presence would engender betrayal in my nephew? I have heard some of what you did to turn him against me, you know.”

  She actual y had the effrontery to try and argue.

  “I wasn’t trying to turn him against you.”

  “Liar. Stil , you have not succeeded. If anything, it has had the opposite effect. Just the threat of separating your pretty head from your shoulders and placing it on an icicle for al to see has made him only too eager to capture your kingdom while you are away.” The Winter Queen smiled, Drawing one finger down Gem’s cheek to freeze the first hints of tears there. She heard the gasp that came from her son.

  “So that’s why you had Devon capture Gem,” Jack said. “Without her there, there is no one to command the Dragon. No one to organize the defense.”

  The Winter Queen nodded happily. It seemed that her son had at least some grasp of these things.

  Maybe in time he would become genuinely useful to her.

  “I couldn’t have attempted it without the stronger links between worlds, of course, which is why I have had to wait so very long. Stil , even if he is acting under duress, Devon should bring me victory easily enough now.”

  The Winter Queen was pleased enough to feel playful. She nodded at one of the ice wal s, and it carved itself into a victory scene, with Devon standing over piles of fal en Anachronian warriors, ready to exalt her as queen of both kingdoms. She particularly liked the way Princess Chelsea’s daughter squirmed at the sight of it.

  “So you did al this just to get me out of the way?” the girl asked. “You kidnapped my father to lure me here?”

  “Oh, you do have an exorbitant sense of your importance don’t you?” The Winter Queen shook her head. “No, I stil have other uses for Henry Word. You coming after him was a bonus.”

  In fact, it had always fascinated the Winter Queen that people would do things like that. Didn’t they understand how stupid it was? Didn’t they see the world as clearly as she did?

  “I suppose if I ask you why you came after him,” the Winter Queen said, with the ennui of someone who had heard the answer many times before, “you’l say that you love him, even though you only just found out that the man is your father.” Predictably enough, the Anachronian queen nodded.

  “Yes. When I started the journey here, I wasn’t sure, but now… yes, I love my father, as you must love your children.”

  “Of course, though I wil love them more when they are of greater use to me. When they are loyal.” To the Winter Queen’s surprise, Gem shook her head.

  “No, that isn’t how it works. It isn’t down to their fidelity, or usefulness, or anything else. You just love them because they are yours to love. I feel sorry that you can’t understand that.”

  Anger rose through the Winter Queen then, implacable and deadly.

  “You dare to lecture me? To pity me? I am the Winter incarnate! What are you? Some insolent girl with a crown gained by chance, that’s what.” She conjured a knife of pure ice, as clear as the purest icicle and every bit as sharp, putting it to the girl’s throat. “You wil hand over your kingdom!”

  “No,” Gem replied.

  For the briefest moment, the Winter Queen thought of kil ing her, or of simply compel ing her with magic, but then Gem’s protestations of love for her father came back to her. She whirled from the young woman, touching the ice shield that held Henry Word in his workplace and dissolving it with a thought.

  Before the human man could move, the knife was at his throat.

  “Wel then, if you want to be intransigent, we
shal simply have to test those theories about love you wanted to harangue me with a minute ago.

  Which do you love more, your father or your kingdom? Choose quickly.”

  The Winter Queen smiled to see the way that the girl looked at her father. What would she choose? What could she choose? After al , Word was important on so many levels, the center of so many things.

  Final y, the Winter Queen watched as Gem shook her head.

  “You won’t kil him. He’s too important to your plans.”

  “You think so? Wel , you are not.”

  The Winter Queen stepped from Henry Word, letting the dagger fade. She would do this the fun way, freezing Anachronia’s little queen until she was nothing more than a block of ice, before pushing her over to shatter.

  “Please,” Jack cal ed to her, obviously guessing what she intended, “Don’t do this, Mother.

  There is another way. Let me marry her.”

  “Be silent.” A patch of frost appeared over her son’s mouth. “You think I can tolerate her? Even as a daughter-in-law? I gave her the chance to forsake her kingdom, and she stood against me, now she…

  what?”

  The last exclamation came as something struck the Winter Queen from behind, sending her skidding over the icy floor. It took her a moment to realize that Katherine, dear, sweet Katherine, had pushed her, sliding her inexorably towards where Jack stood frozen to the spot.

  “Catch, Jack!”

  The boy’s broad arms spread out, enfolding the Winter Queen as she slid into his embrace. She lashed out with cold, but he stood there, absorbing it stoical y. At the same time, the Winter Queen felt a push at her hold over the ice. The frost holding Jack and the Anachronian girl fel away. She looked round and found Kat reading furiously from her book on ice magic. When the Winter Queen went to counter it, her son squeezed harder, nearly crushing the breath from her body.

  “Gem, Mr. Word, run!” he yel ed. The Winter Queen saw Gem look back at him and his sister.

  “What about you?”

  “Go, Gem,” Katherine ordered, “I can’t hold this much longer.”

  Henry Word grabbed Gem’s arm then, robbing the Winter Queen of the chance to see what the girl would choose by nearly dragging her from the hal way. They were gone before she could react, leaving her alone with her two children. With a roar of fury, the Winter Queen broke free of her son’s grip, throwing him from her.