So what would the company do once it learned its gambit in Gaelan had failed?
The list of things he’d have to deal with later was starting to overwhelm Xander.
“One thing at a time,” Quince said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He nodded. One thing at a time.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Shift
THEY DEPARTED at dawn as planned—Quince, Jameson, Xander, and Morgan, along with Kadin and his chosen guards, a man named Venin and a woman named Alia. Both carried crossbows as well as medium-length swords, strapped to their waists. Not that they expected to encounter any opposition in the mountains, but Xander wanted to be safe.
They needed to travel light, and quickly.
Jameson wished he’d taken fencing in school. His hand-to-hand combat skills were also sorely lacking, and he had never used a bow and arrow or crossbow. They had confiscated a bunch of pulse rifles and pistols from the captives, though, and each of them carried one. He had practiced with his a few times before they had departed.
Jameson was determined that he would not need rescuing again.
Before they left, Xander had knelt next to Morgan to explain what they planned to do. The boy nodded, and Xander gave him a big hug, enveloping him with his wings. The sight gave Jameson a lump in his throat.
The morning had dawned cool and foggy. The worst of the fog had burned off, but it promised to be a cold flight through the mountains. The sun above was almost yellow, a shocking change from the rosy pink it had been when they had come through the waygate. Jameson imagined he could see giant flares coming off the sun’s surface. He shivered.
Kadin had outfitted them all with protective thermal clothing. As Jameson was discovering, the skythane society was a strange mix of hand-made items and modern conveniences imported from Oberon, probably in trade for pith.
Gaelan sat in the foothills of the Mora, the mountain chain that defined the western edge of Titania. Jameson tried to picture the two halves of the world combined—the Pyramus Mountains and the Mora Mountains as one big mountain chain, back to back.
He looked around at his companions. Their society seemed blatantly incapable of having devised whatever machinery or method had ripped the world into two, and his knowledge of human expansion and technology certainly supported that.
If not their ancestors, though, then who had?
They climbed to an altitude high above the valley floor, following it up into the mountains. Quince had warned them that it would be cold, and already Jameson was feeling the chill, but the steady exercise seemed to help.
Morgan was once again strapped to Xander’s chest for the flight. The boy remained an enigma to them all. He and Xander had talked it over the night before, after Jameson had told him the things the boy had done. They were still mystified about his origins.
Even Kadin had seemed shaken by the boy’s powers and unsure of what he was. Jameson had asked him if the boy was a sneach, a wood spirit, as Quince had first suspected. Kadin had never heard of a sneach helping a human being. They were little tricksters, according to legend.
Xander and Jameson flew side by side, and every now and then Xander would shoot him a private smile. Jameson had come a long way in the last nine days, both physically and emotionally. He looked back on that previous version of himself and wondered why he had ever been so scared to let his real self out.
The mountains ahead were covered in a dense blanket of clouds. “We’ll need to fly wing to wing,” Xander said as they approached the mist. “Kadin, you take the lead.”
The Chamberlain nodded, and they arranged themselves in a V shape as they entered the clouds. Jameson was reminded of flocks of geese on Beta Tau.
The air was cold and clammy on Jameson’s exposed face, and he wished this whole thing would just be over. Not for the first time.
What would he do when it was? Assuming he survived, would he stay with Xander? Would Xander even want him? What would he tell his parents, if he ever made it back home? He had changed fundamentally since they’d met, and he had no desire to go back.
They had a deep connection, something they hadn’t explored fully yet, but that was literally in the past. Just because they were linked from an earlier time, did that mean they were meant for each other in this one?
Was he more Lyrin, or Jameson?
So many questions with no answers.
They flew on through the blank white sky, and his thoughts were as nebulous as the clouds.
The journey gave his mind lots of time to roam, and his subconscious time to work a few things out.
After an hour or two, he decided he wanted to stay with Xander and see where this thing would go. If Xander wanted it too.
After another couple hours of slow going, they broke out of the cloud cover at last.
Jameson gasped.
Below them was a wide, verdant valley, filled with purple trees. A long, diamond-shaped lake sat in the middle of the valley, its waters the deepest turquoise blue.
The sky had taken on a cascade of colors. Just like it had when the flare on Oberon had brought down the shuttle.
Time was running out, and fast.
At the far end of the valley, a mountain rose up and up into the sky like a granite tower.
The Mountain, as Kadin had called it—or the end of the world.
KADIN LED them in flight up the side of the Mountain.
Xander “remembered” it. His borrowed memories were no match for the impressive scope of the thing in real life before him. They rose on air currents from the warm valley below, drifting in circles higher and higher for half an hour, and still it seemed as if they were no closer to the top.
The lake below was now little more than a puddle.
It was freezing up there. Although there were no clouds around the Mountain, the air was colder than ever this high above sea level. Xander wondered how close they were to the stratosphere.
“The entrance is on the other side,” Kadin called, gesturing for them to follow him. He led them around the back side of the Mountain, which was much narrower at this elevation. Jameson gasped.
The Mountain’s slopes on this side trailed off into nothing, straddling the Split, and there were stars above and below them.
“It’s quite a sight,” Kadin said. “We’re almost there, Your Highness.” The Chamberlain pointed to a dark patch in the rock above.
They swooped toward it. It was a terrace jutting out from the rock wall of the Mountain, with a cavern entrance hollowed out behind it, which looked too symmetrical to be natural.
Kadin alighted first, followed by the others. “Welcome to the Mountain,” Kadin said with a theatrical sweep of his arm.
They hurried inside the cavern, out of the chill wind, and Xander ran his hand along the walls, marveling at how smooth and warm the stone was. Something must be warding off the chill—that suggested machinery of some sort. It was a tunnel, not a naturally occurring cave.
The tunnel led straight back into the Mountain, running slightly downward. Xander could see his breath in the air, and the cold seeped through his gloves and under his flight gear.
He loosened the ties that held Morgan to his chest, and the boy dropped to the ground.
Kadin pulled a lantern from his pack to provide them with light. Before he could ignite it, however, Morgan strode ahead into the darkness, holding a hand in the air that began to glow with a soft golden light.
Xander and Kadin exchanged a glance, and Xander shrugged, setting off after the boy. They’d trusted him this far.
They followed the passageway down into the Mountain, and as the entrance receded behind them, the air itself began to warm. After a few moments, Xander took off his cap and gloves. After a few more, he shrugged off his jacket, leaving them all to be picked up on the return trip. He wondered once again who had built this place.
Soon, he noticed that the tunnel walls were lit by some other external glow—something ahead was providing illumination. Morgan put down his
hand, and the golden glow faded, replaced by a faint silver light.
Xander took Jameson’s hand, and they proceeded toward the light.
It grew stronger, bit by bit, and at last Xander could see the end of the tunnel, an opening into a much brighter place.
He gripped Jameson’s hand tighter, and together they stepped into the light.
They found themselves in a wide circular room. The stone here had been polished to a reflective luster, and the ceiling soared overhead in a high dome, decorated in fine lines of silver filigree. The lines gave off a soft hue, lighting the room, reminding Xander of a circuit board writ large.
On the far side of the room was a rock archway big enough for three people to walk through, side by side. Like the gateway at the House of the Stars, it was filled with stone.
Xander looked around. “Is this it?” he asked Quince, frowning. It seemed anticlimactic.
“This is the place,” Jameson said. He walked around the room, running his hand along the wall; wherever he touched one of the silver lines, blue sparks flew into the air, but didn’t seem to hurt him. He turned to Xander. “We were here, you and me. In another life. You with your raven hair and black wings….”
“I’ve never been here before in my life.” And yet…. Xander touched the archway with his free hand, and his vision splintered into a thousand shards as his mind was flooded with memories. It was like someone had connected a firehose to his brain and opened the valve, like the memory flood before, but even stronger.
They stood side by side, hand in hand, and stared through the portal. On the other side was a world like this one. Half a world.
Xander/Elyra turned to Daedus, pulling him to him/her for a last passionate kiss. There was no guarantee this mad plan would actually work. Just because the nimfeach had prophesized it….
They might be torn from one another’s arms forever.
Their lips met, and he was Hesies and Damella and Virgo and many more besides, a door opening up in his mind to his long line of ancestors. Jameson was Davos and Thera and Lydia and many other iterations of his own, each connected to Xander’s own past incarnations.
Then he was Elyra and Jameson was Daedus once more, standing in this very room seven hundred and fifty years before their present.
Though his features were very different, his essence was still Jameson’s, and Xander knew him.
The vision fell away, and it was just the two of them, Xander and Jameson, standing together in the cavern with their friends and companions arrayed around them. Everything had changed.
“We’re supposed to have the rocthane,” Jameson said. “It’s the key.”
Xander nodded.
Jameson reached out to knock on the wall beneath the arch. It was solid, unyielding rock.
“I have an idea. Do you trust me?” he asked Xander, holding out his hand.
Xander frowned again, and then nodded. “I do.” Damned if I know why, but I do. He took Jameson’s hand and pulled him forward in front of the archway.
“Stand here, and look through the arch.”
Xander did as he was told.
Jameson held his hand out… to Morgan. Without a word, the boy stepped forward and took Jameson’s outstretched hand.
Morgan put his other hand in Xander’s. Somehow, it made sense.
“Are you ready?” Jameson asked.
Xander nodded. “If you are.”
Holding Morgan’s hand, Jameson stepped backward through the rock wall as it dissolved.
JAMESON STEPPED through the arch, holding Morgan’s hand tightly, and the rock flowed around him, dissolving into nothing as he passed through it.
Something the boy had said about the plan had resonated in his mind, and when they had reached this place, it had come to him. This was the reason Morgan was here. To help them see this event through to its end.
He’d been fairly certain, but it wasn’t until Morgan had taken his hand that he’d been sure.
Morgan was the key.
Jameson glanced around the room; it was the mirror image of the one he had just left, but empty.
When Morgan reached the midway point, held by the two of them, blue lines appeared on his neck, running down his back and up over his head like lightning. A sound came from the boy as well, a low hum that grew and grew in power and volume, until it drowned out everything else.
Suddenly Morgan shone with a silvery blue light, which quickly shaded over into gold and red. Jameson watched, fascinated and then with growing horror, as the boy was consumed by fire. From inside the cascade of light, Morgan looked up at him and smiled.
The whole room flashed silver and there was a pulse of energy that knocked him backward onto his ass, momentarily blinding him, tearing his hand away from Morgan’s. He opened his eyes, but he could only see the vaguest outline of the shapes around him.
Slowly Jameson’s vision cleared. There was a deep rumbling beneath his feet. He could see the others through the gateway.
“It’s happening,” Quince said.
Morgan was nowhere to be seen.
“IT’S HAPPENING,” Quince said.
Somehow, Jameson had known Morgan was the key. The boy, the creature she had tried to snuff out. Only dumb luck and the intervention of Xander and Jameson had stopped her.
She shuddered at how close she had come to ruining everything.
As the boy started to shine like a miniature star, the circuitry in the ceiling—if that’s what it was—began to glow, electrical charges running back and forth across the dome faster and faster, a hum building to a crescendo.
The flash, when it came, left her momentarily blinded, but her vision was coming back.
Jameson stepped back into the room with them as the shaking increased in tempo.
“Is it supposed to do this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Jameson shouted over the tumult. “I don’t think it did the last time.” He looked around. “Where’s Morgan?”
Quince shook her head. The boy was gone.
Bits of the ceiling were starting to fall now as the smooth surface began to crack and split. Dust and small pebbles were shaken loose, along with pieces of the silver inlay.
“I think we’d better get out of here.”
Xander nodded. She hustled everyone back into the tunnel. If anyone else was going to die here, it would be her.
The roar continued to increase. Quince ran along the tunnel after the others, feeling the grinding shudders as the Mountain groaned all around them. Her ears were filled with the moaning, crushing sounds, and the floor jerked back and forth underfoot. It was like being in the maw of a giant beast, and Quince had never been so aware of her own mortality and insignificance.
The illumination Morgan had provided was gone, but there was only one way to go, so they ran on ahead through the darkness.
One minute, the boy had been there, and the next he’d been gone.
Quince had no time to mourn him.
There was sunlight directly ahead.
Now larger parts of the tunnel’s ceiling were starting to fall, and twice she had to detour around a chunk of rock as it crashed to the ground. The small party pushed on toward the light.
They reached the terrace at last, emerging into the open air. Quince followed Jameson out and took a big gulp of the fresh air.
“Look!” Jameson was pointing to where the edge of the world had been.
The stars were gone. Now mountains stretched out ahead of them for miles. The mountains of Oberon. We did it.
“I don’t think we’re safe yet,” Xander said, looking down the mountainside. The rumbling had reached a crescendo and parts of the Mountain itself were collapsing behind them.
Their terrace began to split away, a crack running along the base where it connected to the mountainside.
“Fly!” Quince shouted, leaping into the air and away from the disintegrating peak. One after the other, each of her companions followed, swooping away from the ongoing destructio
n.
When she looked back, the tunnel mouth had vanished.
They flew together, away from the collapsing Mountain and back down toward the valley on the other side. The rumblings slowly began to subside.
They soared over the valley. The upper half was buried under the debris from the Mountain. On the eastern side, large swaths of trees had been flattened. Others were relatively untouched.
All the atmosphere on the split side of both halves of the world must have been forced out in the shift, flattening the forests for miles.
Quince alighted on a purple hillside at the valley’s lower end. The shaking finally stopped, but the atmosphere was unsettled, a line of storm clouds marking the line where the worlds had been rejoined.
Quince wondered what had become of the miners who had been on the Split when their world had been forcibly reattached to its missing half. Hopefully the end had come quickly. She closed her eyes and said a prayer for their souls.
She wondered about the denizens of Oberon City, looking up to suddenly find themselves living under an alien sky.
As the dust clouds from its collapse began to dissipate, what was left of the Mountain reappeared, a cracked shell of its former self.
The gateway was lost, along with Morgan and his secrets.
She had no idea how they were going to send Oberon back to where it belonged.
As if on cue, it started to rain.
XANDER’S HEAD swam with the memories of a hundred selves, each one his ancestor, and somehow himself as well. How had Jameson managed to hold it all together with so many selves inside his head?
The two of them alighted safely on the eastern edge of the lake with their companions, and turned to see what they had wrought.
The Mountain was in shambles. It had collapsed, filling the western half of the valley with rubble. Beyond it lay the Pyramus mountains of Oberon. Storm clouds were rushing down upon them, sure to clear the dust out of the sky.
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