by B.J. Keeton
Chapter thirty-three
“I can't hold it for much longer,” Chuckie said.
“Can you give me two or three minutes?” Harlo yelled.
He panted. “I doubt it.”
Harlo went to work quickly. She placed her fear into the nanites, urging them to work faster. She needed to help Saryn, and Chuckie was giving everything he could so that would happen.
Then something changed. It took a moment for her to figure out what had happened. Harlo whipped her head toward Chuckie, who still held his palms to the ground, panting and shaking. She was pretty sure he was drooling, too, but she wouldn’t mention that to him. He said between pants, “I think Ceril did it.”
Harlo pursed her lips and turned back to Saryn. Regardless of whether that was true, Chuckie kept his Conjured shield up, and she worked more quickly, just to be sure. She was just putting the finishing touches on healing Saryn's burns when the shield disappeared, and Chuckie collapsed.
The Conjured fire from the stakes was gone, and Harlo looked around. She was the only conscious person in sight, which had its own special way of creeping her out. Saryn seemed to be stable for the moment, so Harlo took a few seconds of downtime to breathe and try to stop shaking. As she glanced around, she saw Ceril against the far wall. He looked like he was in bad shape.
Rest be damned, she rushed to him. She had seen a lot of things, had helped patch up some people who everyone but Professor Howser had said were too far gone, but when she looked down at Ceril, she was thankful she hadn’t eaten in a while. Both her hands covered her mouth, and she dropped to both knees.
He was missing his left arm, and the wound was oozing blood, but not pouring it. He was lying in an unnatural sitting position, which indicated that more than one of his leg bones had been crushed. If she was correct and his posture was any indication, the right leg had sustained the worst injury. Harlo examined his arm more closely and saw his nanite sleeve covering as much of the arm wound as it could. That explained the lessened blood flow, but it would not keep him alive forever. She had to do something, but she had just spent everything she had—both in terms of her energy and her nanites—stabilizing Saryn’s burns. There was no way she could help Ceril with this magnitude of injury with a depleted nanite sleeve and no other supplies. They had to get him out of there.
Chuckie stirred eventually from his position on the floor. His breathing was hard and ragged, but he forced himself to stand and go over to Swinton’s body. He knelt down beside his friend and said, “I'm sorry, man.” The high priest’s Conjured fire had incinerated Swinton alive. The corpse could barely be recognized as having once been human. Chuckie was careful not to disturb the figure; the slightest touch could easily make it crumble, and for the moment, those ashes were still Swinton. Chuckie spoke slowly, quietly. “I'm sorry it was you, man. I am. But thank you. For letting it not be me.”
Chuckie stood up and wiped his eyes. He moved beside Harlo and asked, “Did you see Swinton?”
She shook her head.
“He's gone.” The words were harder to say than they were to think. “Ash.”
Harlo understood. She pointed at Ceril.
“What the hell?” Chuckie said. “Is he—?”
“Not yet,” she said. “He will be soon, though. I can’t do anything for him, Chuckie. Not with him like…that.” She swallowed audibly.
“This is a temple, right?” Chuckie asked.
“I would assume. Or a prison or something. I don’t know. Sure, temple sounds good.”
“Well,” Chuckie said, “that means there very well might be something that can save him here. Some healing magic or some kind of mojo the priest had.”
“Maybe,” Harlo agreed.
“How’s Saryn?”
“She needs to sleep, but when she wakes up, she should be just fine. It may take some time, though, for her to wake up, and that’s what worries me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ceril doesn't have time. If we wait much longer…”
Harlo saw Chuckie run the tip of his tongue across his front teeth. Then he blinked once and stood up. “Wake her up,” he said.
“It's not that easy, Chuckie. She has nanites in her system that—”
“Wake her up. I'll get Ceril, and we're getting out of this room, cell, furnace, whatever.”
“I don’t think—”
“Do it, Harlo.”
Harlo was not used to that level of sternness in Chuckie's voice, so she obeyed. She went to Saryn and gently nudged her, willing her nanite sleeve to stimulate those she had left inside her teammate’s body. Saryn's eyes popped open, and she pushed herself off the ground like nothing had happened.
“Easy, Saryn,” Harlo said. “You got a pretty bad burn, and you’re still healing.”
“I’m—I’m—” she stuttered.
“Yeah, you're going to be fine. Right now, we have to go. Ceril's in pretty bad shape, but I think he saved us.”
Saryn said nothing as Harlo helped her to her feet. The two women moved slowly toward Chuckie, who was now holding Ceril like a mother cradling an infant. Chuckie pointed in the direction the priest had entered the room and said, “The bald bitch came from that direction. That's where we go.”
Saryn and Harlo followed Chuckie. They passed by Swinton's ashy corpse and did their best not to disturb it.
They approached the wall that had opened up to grant the high priest access to her prisoners, but nothing happened. The wall remained solid. Aside from the exit into the city, there was nowhere else to go.
“Now what?” Saryn asked.
“She came from here. I saw it. She came through the wall.”
“But how do we do that, Chuckie?”
“I don’t know.”
Harlo touched the wall and nothing happened. She then held her palm open to Conjure the nanite scope she had used in her and Swinton’s cell, but she had too few nanites left in her sleeve for such a complex construction. Saryn touched the wall, trying to find some passkey in the symbols that glowed along its surface, but the wall stayed solid.
Chuckie touched the wall just as Ceril had a fit of coughing. He began to spit up blood, and Chuckie readjusted the way he carried his commanding officer. As he shifted Ceril’s weight, one of Ceril’s broken legs swung wide and kicked the wall. Ceril grunted in pain and coughed again. The wall began to shift immediately.
Instead of opening like it had for the high priest, two large purple doors shimmered into life in front of where the four of them stood.
“Something’s going on with the boss,” Chuckie said.
“We’ll worry about that if we make it out of here,” Saryn said. “There’ll be time for questions when he’s not as good as dead.”
“Guess we’re going in?”
“It doesn’t appear that we have a lot of choice in the matter,” Harlo said.
Chuckie yanked on the handle and stepped through the door without even checking what was on the other side. Saryn and Harlo followed after him. They stepped into a bright room, with no doors, no walls, no ceiling. It was like they were surrounded by intense violet light, supported by it, standing on it.
Then the floor fell from beneath their feet. A hissing sound filled their ears, and with a whuff-pop, they found themselves outside under the harsh purple light of the world's twin suns. Wind gusted at them, and they had to squint to see.
Chuckie almost dropped Ceril, but he found his legs quickly. Saryn dropped to her hands and knees, and Harlo had to brace herself against one of the spires lining the edge of the platform.
“What was that?” Chuckie asked.
“I…think we were teleported,” Saryn answered. She shook her head and looked up at the two suns. Her back hurt, but when she looked at Ceril, she stood up and tried to hide the shakiness she felt. Always someone worse off than you are, she thought. But why’d it have to be Ternia?
“Where to?” Chuckie asked.
“My guess is on top of the templ
e,” Harlo said. “From the looks of it. Swinton and I were in a cell pretty high up in the tower, and this looks like it could be kind of similar.”
“Well, how do we get down? I don’t think the boss is gonna do a whole lot of healing up here. It’s not exactly a hospital.”
“I'm not sure we get down, Chuckie,” said Saryn. She pointed toward an altar in the middle of the platform. It was raised slightly, with stairs attached to it. She walked unsteadily toward it, and a man appeared in the center of the raised section. He was old, but one could only tell by the greying of his hair. He had bright eyes and smiled at Saryn as she approached.
“You are not the high priest,” said the man.
“Not quite,” Saryn said.
“He looks like that guy from before,” Chuckie said. “What did Ceril call him? The Archive?”
“I am indeed a brother unit to the Archive,” confirmed the man.
“What is your purpose?” Saryn asked.
“I am the Gatekeeper,” replied the hologram. “It is my function to oversee the successful completion of Instance travel within Meshin and across Jaronya. The platform on which I stand is the most coherent point of energy conversion.”
“So you're saying this is an Instance portal?” Chuckie asked.
“Indeed it is,” said the hologram. “I am afraid, however, that without the high priest’s permission, I cannot allow you access.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Chuckie said. “What do we do, Saryn?”
Her eyes darted back and forth as she thought. What was it that Ceril had said in the Archive? He had some kind of authorization. “Would you scan our friend here?” Saryn asked. “He’s not the high priest, but I believe he has access to the Archive. Could that grant us use of the Instance portal?”
“That would indeed be possible,” said the Gatekeeper. “If you will all hold still for just a moment, please.” The grey-haired hologram projected a horizontal purple light from its eyes, and it looked from Chuckie to Saryn to Harlo to Ceril. As the light passed over Ceril, the hologram paused. Its eyes closed and reopened. If Saryn had thought it were possible, she would have thought the Gatekeeper tensed up. He said, “I am very sorry to have kept you waiting. Where is your destination?”
Saryn said, “I'm not sure, actually. I don't think our home Instance connects to this one.”
“I do not see how that is possible,” said the Gatekeeper. “I’m sure that you already know that Jaronya was originally constructed to serve as a hub, a nexus for the Charonic Archive. The entire Instance system was built around the understanding that no matter where an agent might be, he or she would be able to travel here and find a portal that would lead elsewhere. While not every portal goes everywhere, every portal goes somewhere.”
Saryn’s eyes widened as she tried to grasp at the logistics of such an undertaking. She could not fathom the amount of power, skill, and calculation it would have taken to make an Instance in which every point of known space would overlap. She did not think it was possible.
“That's impossible,” Saryn said.
“Not impossible,” said the Gatekeeper. “Just difficult.”
“Then you’re saying that Jaronya is some kind of, I don’t know, skeleton for the universe?”
“That is a fairly crude and unsophisticated way one could think about it,” the Gatekeeper said.
“How is that even possible?”
“It took many years to perfect the system, and even now there are sometimes anomalies, but it works well enough and is constantly being overseen and tweaked. The high priest functions as curator for the system.” The three of them shared a glance, but the Gatekeeper said nothing about it. “Now, where is your destination?”
Chuckie spoke up. “Erlon. Ennd's Academy.”
“I am sorry,” said the hologram, and the entire group let out a collective sigh. “Transportation to Erlon-Ennd's Academy is prohibited from this location by mandate of the Untouchable.”
“Excuse me?” Saryn said.
“The Untouchable has stated very clearly that connections to Erlon-Ennd’s Academy are unstable. All potential connections must be rerouted elsewhere for such transit.”
“Can you get us anywhere on Erlon?” Chuckie asked. “Anywhere will work.”
“I am sorry. The Untouchable has prohibited all travel to Erlon. Not just Erlon-Ennd’s Academy.”
“Who is this Untouchable?” Harlo asked. “He’s…” Chuckie elbowed her between the shoulder blades. “…making life hard on us here. Our friend is in trouble. We have to get to Erlon.”
“I see. The Untouchable is the head of the Charonic Archive, and his word is law. Your friend has a very,” the hologram paused almost imperceptibly, “unique set of credentials that grant his authorization; however, even they cannot override a standing mandate from the Untouchable.”
“He’s going to die if we don’t get back to Erlon,” Harlo pleaded.
Saryn asked, “Where is the Untouchable? Can we talk to him?”
“The Untouchable’s last known whereabouts are,” the hologram paused again, “a region called Ternia in Instance Erlon.”
“Last known?” Saryn said.
“I am sorry, my dear. I cannot provide any more information than that. Your dying friend’s authorization only goes so far, you see.”
“How far does it go?” Chuckie asked. “How close can you get us to Erlon?”
The grey-haired hologram smiled at Chuckie. “The Untouchable has prevented all travel to Erlon. It is within my programming, and I cannot alter nor contradict such a directive. However, your friend’s dire medical situation as well as a genetic signature similar to the Untouchable’s indicates that it is well within my parameters to transport you to an adjacent Instance from which you should find immediate transport to Erlon-Ennd’s Academy. Would that be sufficient?”
“If we keep up this Q&A, Saryn, the only thing Ceril is gonna be related to is a pile of maggots.” Chuckie turned to the hologram. “Yes,” Chuckie said. “That’d be dandy. The faster the better.”
“Very well,” the Gatekeeper said. Behind him, the air split. All of them had seen Instance portals for years now and had become quite used to them. This one was different. It was raw somehow, primal. Its energy wasn't contained by a frame or doorway. Bridges of energy crackled at its edges and leapt from one side to the other. The overbearing purpleness of Jaronya was interrupted by a cozy room illuminated by golden sunlight.
“Is it safe?” asked Harlo.
“Perfectly,” replied the Gatekeeper.
“Good enough for me,” Chuckie said. He adjusted Ceril in his arms and rushed through the portal. Harlo and Saryn followed.
“Thank you,” Saryn told the Gatekeeper as she passed. He nodded in return.