The Forever Gate Compendium Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  Hoodwink opened his eyes, and he did what he'd promised himself he wouldn't do.

  He looked down.

  The city looked almost unreal at this height. It was like he stood again beside the street vendor with her miniature replicas and maps again, and casually observed one of her wares. True, this was far more detailed than any map he'd ever seen, but the illusion of perception made the city seem much closer through the goggles, like he could just reach out and pick it up.

  But then his eyes focused on the whirling snow closer at hand, those flakes descending from the heights like an endless vortex of doom, and the reality of what he saw hit him. He felt suddenly nauseous, and dizzy.

  The duffel bag abruptly slid down his shoulder. He let go of the rope with that hand and caught the bag in the crook of his forearm. Two bundles of salted meat tumbled free and spun away on the breeze as the upper winds picked them up. Entranced, he watched the bundles fall. The fingers of the hand that gripped the rope began to slip. It would be so easy to follow those bundles down...

  He snapped his head away, slid the duffel bag back into place, and placed both hands firmly on the rope. He concentrated on the bare rockface just ahead.

  I can climb without a rope. I can climb without a rope. I can climb...

  Could he really?

  It was cold. So damn cold. The dead of winter in the coldest of winters yet, and he lay miles up from the earth. The snow fell more heavily. If this kept up, he doubted he'd be able to see farther than a pace or two. And the sun would set soon. If he was caught on the wall in the dark, he'd freeze to death.

  Yes. Better to go back now, while he still could. He couldn't climb this. That howling wind would either freeze him to the bone, or tear him from the rock. Or the lack of oxygen in the Death Zone would take him. He wasn't trained for this. He was thirty-five years old. Sure, he was fit because of his job building barrels, but hammering nails into wood was far different than pulling one's body up a rockface.

  He had to go back.

  He had to admit when defeat had slapped him in the face.

  Just like how he'd admitted defeat when Jeremy and the gols took away his daughter. Just like how he'd given up and buried himself in his job, and spent the nights in the tavern, going home miserably drunk, and hating himself. Hating. He'd wanted his wife to leave him. He'd wanted to be punished, for allowing his daughter to be taken. Every morning he'd passed Ari by on the way to work, and he'd never said a word. He'd given up. Like he gave up now.

  He had a rare moment of absolute lucidity right then.

  The rockface wasn't his enemy.

  It never had been.

  It was cliche to think it, but he was his most ruthless enemy. He was the one he had to fight.

  He could climb this wall.

  And he would.

  He was through giving up.

  He shut his eyes, and breathed deeply, remembering why he was doing this.

  I won't let you die Ari.

  Opening his eyes, he flipped open the fingertips of both gloves by sliding them one at a time against the rope. The wind assailed his numb fingers, but he let a small spark of electricity flow into them, warming the flesh.

  Before he could change his mind he let one hand leave the rope. He felt along the rough surface with his bare fingers, seeking a handhold. There. He forced his fingers into a slight crevice, and raised a boot, wedging the crampons into a foothold. He pulled with his arm and leg at the same time, and flinched as the finger joints bore the weight of his body.

  He planted the opposite boot on a small ledge, and straightened the leg, reaching up to find a handhold for the corresponding arm. He squeezed his fingers onto a tiny shelf, and paused for an instant.

  The only thing holding him up was the strength of his own body. There was no rope. No second-chances should he make a mistake. He rode death's horse by the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes.

  He tried not to think about that for too long.

  Focus, Hood.

  The fingers of both hands throbbed at their first joints, but it was a manageable pain.

  He lifted his knee, planted his boot on a new foothold, and pressed upward. His torso rose, and he scrambled the fingers of one hand along the wall, searching for a handhold.

  But before he could find that handhold, the newly-placed foot slipped, the crampons breaking away a small section of the wall.

  Hoodwink slammed against the rock and his other boot lost footing. He hung there by one hand, the finger joints bearing the brunt of his weight. Only the tensile strength of a couple of knuckles stood between him and oblivion. Knuckles that throbbed in torment.

  He scrambled with his left hand along the rockface, searching for a hold, any hold. Incredibly, he couldn't find one. Nothing would support him. A tiny ledge there. Too slippery. A crevice here. His fingers wouldn't fit.

  The knuckles of his other hand had held thus far, but it was the arm muscles that now started to fail. His entire arm shook uncontrollably.

  Frantically, he lifted his forgotten feet. He had to find a foothold.

  There. A small jutting piece of rock. Just a fragment. But he was able to jam the spikes of both boots onto it, sharing the weight with his arm. The pain in his knuckles subsided a little, but the arm was still shaking rapidly, near exhaustion. He searched the wall again with his free hand, finding a hold he'd missed the first time, and trusted his weight to it.

  Carefully, he released the first shaking hand from the wall. His fingers were curled into a permanent claw, and he found himself unable to straighten them through the pain.

  He allowed more electricity into the hand, massaging the tendons and bone with that spark, worried that he'd never be able to open his hand again. With an effort he was finally able to coax each finger open.

  He reached up, found the next handhold, and had to curl up those sore fingers all over again.

  In this way he proceeded up the last section of the wall, battling against himself, battling against the rock. First one foot, then one hand. Then the other hand. Then the other foot. Rising one small handspan at a time. Conquering infinity bit by bit. Warming his extremities with electricity.

  He came to a section of rock that was covered in ice. He extended an arm and searched with his bare fingertips, seeking a handhold. His fingers slipped everywhere he placed them, and he couldn't find a grip. He was beginning to despair when he remembered the two ice axes he had stowed away in the duffel bag.

  This would be a tricky maneuver. He carefully opened the drawstring of his duffel bag with one hand, and then groped inside until he found both ice axes. He made sure they were side by side, and oriented the same way, and then he wrapped his fingers around the handles and delicately slid the axes out. He reached up, and slammed both axes into the ice above him. The serrated picks dug deep. He pulled on the handles, testing the hold. It seemed firm enough. Shifting his weight to the axes, he released his other arm from the wall and grabbed the leftmost ax so that he held one handle in each palm now. He released the rightmost ax momentarily to pull the drawstring and shut the duffel bag.

  He proceeded up the frozen layer, striking the wall with the ice axes, letting the picks find a hold. The crampons on his boots proved their worth here, allowing him to easily pierce the ice and make his own footholds. All in all, the going was actually much easier than when he had to pull himself up by his fingertips alone. His only worry as he climbed was that an entire sheet of ice would break away while he was on it, perhaps caused by the very motion of striking the wall with the picks. But he compelled himself onward nonetheless, winning countless small battles, not backing down from adversity.

  It's not real, he told himself often during that climb. None of this is real. A part of him even believed it. Some other world existed atop his own, one that he couldn't see, couldn't feel, but was there nonetheless, where he resided at the same time as this one. And it was from that other world, that other self, from which he drew his strength and focus. />
  It's not real.

  Tiny bits of matter called muscle rubbed against each other, powered by a mind comprised of similar tiny bits. This muscle manipulated tiny bits of matter called axes, which in turn struck tiny bits of matter that formed ice. All of those tiny bits made the fiction called reality. Spitting in the face of this reality, denying that it and his own mortality even existed, that's what kept him going.

  Warmed by the electricity of vitra, he climbed, constantly reminded that there was no rope supporting him. That the only thing keeping him from the long fingers of oblivion was his own intensity of will. It was strange, having death so close to him in that climb. He'd never felt such clarity. He'd never felt so full of life.

  He'd never felt so free.

  And then it was done. One moment he was his raising hands and feet with all the intensity of his will and focus, and the next he was pulling himself onto the wall's upper lip, a ledge little wider than his waist. He cleared away a small layer of snow and settled himself onto the ledge.

  It came as sort of a shock to have actually made it. Here he was, in a snowstorm at the top of the world, the frigid gusts whipping his hood, and he'd just climbed the last leg of the Forever Gate without a rope.

  He held out his arms, raising the ice axes, and loosed a shout of victory that was lost in the wind. A few tears spilled from his eyes, and he felt the droplets solidify against the bottom edge of his goggles.

  He crouched down against the rim of the Gate, utterly exhausted. He peered down the other side of the wall, wondering what wonders or horrors lay beyond the Forever Gate.

  But the white-out of the snowstorm veiled the landscape below.

  Of course.

  It was with more than a little relief that he spotted the rope that led down into the depths a short way to his left. He couldn't see where the rope anchored—the top was covered in snow and ice from the ledge. But that didn't matter. The hard work was done and he had a way down.

  For now he needed a moment's rest.

  He remained where he was, staring over the ledge into eternity, at the downward vortex of windswept snow.

  He'd never felt so drained in his life. The sheer intensity of focus needed to climb that wall had drained him to the core. So he just stayed there on the wall, letting the snow fall around him, and the wind pick at his bones.

  He lay back, and his eyes drifted shut.

  He started to fall asleep.

  He heard Leader's voice at the back of his mind.

  You'll feel utterly exhausted because of the thin air. You won't be able to think clearly. You'll want to fall asleep. But fall asleep and you die.

  He batted the voice away. A short nap wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, dying didn't sound half bad right about now. It would be an end to this incredible weariness at least.

  Fall asleep and YOU DIE.

  He forced himself upright.

  He refused to die now, after all this work. He refused.

  Using the ice axes and the spikes at the tips of his boots, he pulled himself along the icy ledge in kind of hunched crawl, making his way toward the rope that led down the other side. He was about to swing himself onto that rope when he remembered he was supposed to update the Users on his progress. He could imagine Ari sitting by the twin of the rigged diary he carried, staring at the blank pages, anxiously awaiting word of his progress.

  But maybe he was just feeding his fatherly ego. Did she even care about him? She said he wasn't her father anymore. She was right. All that she was had been destroyed with her revisal. She had memories of a different father. Memories of another man bringing her to the market square every weekend. Memories of another father comforting her when she fell from the sleigh and hurt herself.

  She wasn't his little girl anymore.

  No, that wasn't true. No matter what memories she had, she was his little girl.

  He set himself firmly on the ledge and resolutely slid off the duffel bag from his shoulder. He retrieved the diary.

  It was an ordinary seeming book. For all he knew, it had no magical properties whatsoever, and any messages he printed here would remain here. He just had to trust in Leader's word, he supposed.

  He slid the writing stylus from its clip on the book's spine, and pressed it to the page. He had to hold the pages down in the wind as he wrote.

  I've made the top of the Gate, he transcribed. His script was terrible. He could barely grip the pencil after a climb like that, and the numbing cold didn't help, even though he sent a surge of electricity through his joints. This entry would have to be short. Snowstorm hides other side. Climbing down now.

  There. That should do.

  He started to return the diary to the duffel bag when a gust of wind snatched the book from him. He fumbled for the thing—

  But it was too late, and the book plunged over the ledge.

  He watched the diary spiral away into the vortex, soon vanishing in the snowstorm.

  With a sigh, Hoodwink stowed the ice picks in the duffel bag and secured the bag to his shoulder. Then he lowered himself onto the rope and began the long climb down the other side.

  The descent proved much faster than the ascent. He rappelled down the wall, using the existing ropes left by the previous climbers. All of those ropes seemed to be intact this time. Even so, the way was frigid, and he was forced to expend his charge keeping warm on the way down.

  When at last he reached the bottom, he was exhausted, and his charge was spent. He set foot on strangely soft ground, and instantly the snowstorm lifted.

  He turned away from the wall to face a world entirely unlike the one he had left behind...

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hoodwink stood in a desert. Sand dunes stretched to the horizon, unbroken by any landmarks. Though it had been evening at the top of the Gate, time had reset, and the sun stood in the midpoint of the sky. The wall of the Forever Gate behind Hoodwink was the only landmark of note, unless you counted the bones of giant beasts in the distance, half-buried in the sand. The skeletons of monsters from the nine hells?

  Despite the desert dunes and the bright sun, he still felt frigid, and his breath fogged white as ever. Yet when he took one step away from the wall, the heat swelled over him in waves, hotter and stronger than he'd ever felt it. He retreated against the wall, and the freezing cold enveloped him once more.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, he steeled himself and then stepped forward. It felt like he'd stepped into an oven.

  He untied and lowered his hood. He took off his goggles. He pulled the balaclava from his head, then knelt and unbuckled the crampons from his boots. He stripped off the remainder of his winter clothes, taking the dagger from the jacket's inner pocket and stuffing it into his trousers. He abandoned the clothes and the steel spikes at the base of the Forever Gate—there was simply no room for them in the small duffel bag.

  He advanced, swilling water from the frozen bladder stowed in the duffel bag. The ice inside melted slowly, drip-feeding him the liquid.

  The sand swallowed him past the ankles with each step, and he could feel the heat of the dunes through his boots. The molten sun beat down mercilessly.

  He wasn't sure how long he marched, because the sun didn't seem to be moving in the sky. He guessed an hour. Long enough for the contents of the water bladder to melt entirely, anyway. And for him to drink it all.

  He paused in the shade of one of those leviathans of bone. The unburied portion of the skull proved colossal, and comprised the greater proportion of the thing. From the skull extended the backbone, to which a prodigious basket of ribs was attached, erupting from the sand like a giant claw. The middle ribs had the greatest arch—bigger than some of the city footbridges. The backbone tapered as it continued toward the tail, which fanned outward in a massive rake.

  He ran his fingertips across the surface of one of those ribs. The bone was porous, and had a similar texture to the Gate he had just climbed. The macabre notion came to him that the Forever Gate might be made of
the bones of these beasts.

  His tread became slower as time inched by and the heat sapped him. With the water bladder empty, his lips became hopelessly chapped, and his throat felt swollen. Yet he trudged aimlessly onward. There was nowhere else to go but forward. He estimated that half a day had passed since he began, yet the sun still hadn't moved a fingerbreadth in the sky.

  He decided he'd take shelter in the shadow of the next giant skeleton he found. Ahead, off to the right, a suitable candidate awaited.

  But before he reached the leviathan, he unexpectedly ran up against a glass barrier, flattening his face against its surface.

  He slid a sweaty hand along the glass, his fingers making a distinct squeegee sound. On a whim he slammed a hand into it. The surface thudded as if it were made of thick stone. He retrieved the dagger from his trousers and slammed the hilt into the glass with both hands. THUD. This time a vibration passed along the surface. He plunged the dagger into the surface next, but the blade skidded and twisted his wrist at a painful angle. The resultant sound he heard from the barrier reminded him of pebbles skimming along ice.

  He held up a palm and summoned as much electricity as he was able, but only a trickle remained, and the tendrils of energy sparked harmlessly across the surface.

  Then he noticed the hooded figure standing beside the glass, not far from him. Dressed in a black gown, the figure held a scythe in its hand.

  Hoodwink spun toward the figure, dagger raised. "Who are you?"

  The figure said no words, but it advanced, extending a hand that was much like the bony tails of those leviathans Hoodwink had passed. The hem of the figure's robe remained stationary, as if the thing floated rather than walked. It left no footprints in the sand.

  "Stay back!" Hoodwink rasped, keeping his dagger aimed high. Of all times to have no charge...

  He retreated and his right elbow skidded against the glass barrier. He lost his balance, falling to the sand.

  He swiveled toward the figure—