The Forever Gate Compendium Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  "No," Cora said. "It's too late."

  "Cora, I—"

  "Stop. Please."

  He dropped the sword, and knelt beside her. She was right.

  The sights and sounds of the battle faded around him. There was only her. "I'm so sorry."

  "I didn't know you were... a User," she said.

  Hoodwink forced a smile. "My Cora." He clenched her hand in his own, and held it above his heart. "My Cora."

  "You wouldn't have done it, would you, Hoodwink? Killed them?"

  "Of course not, Cora. Of course not. I was about to stop. You didn't have to step in front of me. You didn't." Hoodwink couldn't help but sob then. It was his fault. "I'm so sorry."

  "I knew... knew you wouldn't do it." She smiled sadly. "I never stopped loving you. Though I hated you, I loved you. It's a strange thing, isn't it? To hate someone yet love them all the same. A strange strange thing." She coughed, and blood smeared her chin.

  "I love you too, Cora," Hoodwink said. "I've always loved you. Despite everything. Despite my faults. And what we did. I wish things were different. I wish—" He bowed his head. He was so weak. And ashamed that she saw his weakness, these tears of his.

  Cora smiled briefly. "No Hoodwink, I'm the one who's sorry. I pushed you away when you needed me most." She coughed more blood. "Tell her. Tell Ari, when you bring her back, tell her I'm sorry. It was wrong what we did. So wrong. And remember your promise. Hear me? Destroy the world if you have to. Destroy everything. But you bring her back."

  Hoodwink could scarcely see for the stinging in his eyes. "I will. I swear it. By everything I hold dear, I swear it will be so."

  "You—" Cora's eyes became fixed, dilated.

  And so ended his wife.

  Hoodwink shut Cora's eyes with his thumbs. Maybe he could return to the Outside and find her. She wasn't a gol like him, so there was a chance she hadn't died. That she was waking up right now in a pod of goo. But by the time he disbelieved reality, used the terminal to match her DNA and Output Signal to the pod that contained her, and hunted her down, the iron golems would have her. Assuming her pod wasn't in a depressurized section.

  No. It truly was too late.

  "Goodbye my love." Hoodwink stood. He noticed Briar standing beside him, looking sad, so sad. Briar glanced up, and then backed away. The fat man must have seen Hoodwink's expression.

  "I will not sell her life cheaply." Hoodwink turned around and stalked into the melee. Denizens continued to defend against the Direwalkers, though their ranks were quickly thinning. Hoodwink decided to change that.

  He fought with lightning. Direwalkers flew away from him like confetti. He used up the power in the rings recklessly, and one by one those metal bands of vitra failed him until they all went blank. But by then he had retreated to the rock where Cora lay in death. Briar was there, and he handed Hoodwink the fire sword.

  Direwalkers rushed Hoodwink all at once, thinking he had lost his powers.

  They were sorely mistaken.

  The gols flew backward in flames.

  Hoodwink advanced anew, cutting a fiery swath through the enemy ranks. He let so much vitra flow into that sword that the blade became white, blindingly so. It hurt his own eyes to look at it, this power that was like the sun in his hands. And so he fought, a bearer of ruthless justice, a Direwalker killing machine. If vengeance had a corporeal form, he was it, and he made certain that the Direwalkers rued the day they ever crossed paths with Hoodwink Cooper.

  He weaved between the defenders, protecting them, dealing death to the attackers with his blinding sword. Rocks continued to fall from the sky around him. He ignored the deadly barrage. Let the rocks fall. He had killing to do.

  There was no sign of Gray-cloak and Green-cloak. Likely the New Users had used up their charge and died. Either way, it didn't matter all that much to him. Not anymore.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he spun around, sword raised high.

  Hoodwink restrained himself at the last moment, because it wasn't a Direwalker. Just a cowering old man, hand raised over his head in whimpering defense.

  In his fury he had almost struck down Jacob.

  Hoodwink lowered the blade.

  "Where were you?" Jacob said, shielding his eyes from the bright blade with one hand.

  Fury edged Hoodwink's voice. "You weren't in the Control Room."

  Jacob recoiled a step. "We were. You must have missed us. We picked up the Control Room first, then the Revision Room, then the Dwarf, and we looped back."

  Some of the fury ebbed from Hoodwink. If he'd waited just a little longer back at the Warehouse, maybe Cora would be alive right now.

  My fault.

  In Jacob's other hand, a chain led to the bronze bitch at the Dwarf's neck. Three other New Users acted as escort, and even now fended off Direwalkers with lightning. Those wrinkled old men wouldn't last long though, not at the rate they were expending their charge. There were some swordsmen with them too at least, and they hewed down those Direwalkers that got too close. Two men in the group acted as pack mules—one held the Control Room Box, the other the Revision Box.

  A rock from the sky landed a little close for comfort, and sprayed the group with bricks from a nearby building.

  "How's the sewage outlet?" Jacob said above the fighting.

  A Direwalker came at Hoodwink, and he sliced off its arms, then its legs, then eviscerated it, then dug out its eyes, then cut out its tongue, and finally chopped off its head.

  "That bad, huh?" Jacob said.

  All I can do now is save our daughter. That's all that matters.

  Hoodwink turned around and wordlessly led Jacob to the outlet.

  There were no other Denizen defenders left standing, not in this area, and so without Hoodwink to defend them, the refugees who hadn't yet made it inside the outlet were being picked off one by one by the Direwalkers.

  Hoodwink immediately took the battle to the Direwalkers, and the New Users joined him. Together they forced the attackers back, and guarded the refugees.

  When the last of the surviving women and children had gone through the outlet, Hoodwink shouted at Jacob over his shoulder. "Go!"

  Hoodwink released a final, large surge of flame and then stumbled into the outlet after the others. He lit the way with his sword, which had cooled now to a gentler yellow. His fingers were moderately burned, but he ignored the pain.

  The ceiling was low, the passage tight, made of mudbrick. Some sections of the tunnel wall had collapsed to reveal frozen dirt. The floor was made of dark ice—the frozen excrement of the city's ancestors—though the top layer had been churned to slush. Beyond Jacob and the New Users, Hoodwink could make out the fringes of the milling crowd of humanity that had gone before them.

  Jacob ignited a torch. Good. So Hoodwink wouldn't have to light the entire way with his fire sword.

  The skittering sound of claws drew Hoodwink's attention behind him.

  A Direwalker leaped at Hoodwink—

  He slit the Direwalker open with a swing of the blade.

  Bad move. Blood sprayed all over Hoodwink's face and body, blinding him. He frantically wiped the stuff from his eyes—blood could really sting.

  He blinked away the pain and tears in time to see more Direwalkers racing into the outlet.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hoodwink fought frantically in that cramped space, bringing down Direwalkers left and right, but they just kept on coming. He was only now just beginning to realize how weak his arms were, and how close he was to losing the mental focus necessary to draw vitra through the sword. Even gol bodies obeyed the laws of the illusory world, for the most part, and while unlimited vitra was one thing, being able to use it was another thing entirely.

  He fought mechanically, waiting for someone to come and relieve him.

  "Jacob!" Hoodwink cried.

  No one came. Soon his handiwork had created a pile of dead bodies. He used the pile like a rampart, and ducked behind it, poking and slashing at any
Direwalkers that came near, glad for the momentary respite from full-on fighting.

  "Jacob! Some help here!"

  The press of Direwalkers proved too great, and the attackers forced that wall of bodies right down.

  Hoodwink retreated. I have to survive. For Ari!

  "Jacob!" Hoodwink said.

  He was glad when he finally heard Jacob's voice behind him. "Hoodwink! Can you seal the passage with that sword of yours?"

  "What?" Hoodwink parried a claw to the face. "What about Cap and Al? And anyone else who's still out there?" Maybe Tanner.

  "It's too late for them!" Jacob said. "Seal the passage! You can't hold them off forever!"

  "I just need a break!" Hoodwink split open another Direwalker. "Send one of the others to help me!"

  "Hoodwink, the men are exhausted!" Jacob said. "I'm exhausted. Seal the passage while you still can!"

  Hoodwink refused to give up. It didn't seem right to abandon anyone else who might still be alive in the Den.

  "Hoodwink." Jacob's voice was pleading now. "If we fall, the refugees die. You hear me?"

  The refugees die.

  And if I die, too, Ari's death becomes final.

  Hoodwink ducked a swipe. Too slow. It caught him just above the brow, spilling fresh blood into his eye. He blinked frantically, but he knew this couldn't continue.

  I have to survive.

  "Cover me!" Hoodwink said.

  Jacob squeezed beside him and released a half-hearted bolt of lightning.

  With one eye open, Hoodwink hacked at the low ceiling in front of him, releasing a surge of flames with each strike. The roof collapsed in an avalanche of bricks that completely sealed off the tunnel and raised a waist-high cloud of dust.

  There was quiet for a time, the only sound the trickle of loose dirt from the ceiling.

  And then Hoodwink heard a scraping from beyond the rubble, followed by a muffled clink. More scraping, more clinks—the Direwalkers on the other side were already digging.

  Hoodwink exchanged a one-eyed glance with Jacob, and the two of them retreated.

  "Get back, Jacob. I'm going to cause a little more trouble for our persistent friends." While Jacob withdrew, Hoodwink wiped the blood from his eye and forced the lid open, blinking convulsively through the pain until he could see properly. The flesh-wound in his brow seemed to have congealed at least, so more of that stinging blood wouldn't blind him.

  He backed away, repeatedly jabbing his hot sword into the ceiling as he went.

  Hoodwink caused a large section of the roof to cave in. Bricks competed with frozen dirt and mortar to fill up the tunnel. A cloud of dust cloaked the immediate vicinity.

  Hoodwink coughed, and he heard similar hacking beside him. He saw the diffuse blur of a torch through the murk, the motes of dust descending in a steady, glittering rain in front of it. Jacob.

  "Hoodwink?" As Jacob neared, Hoodwink saw that the old man's face was scabbarded in a layer of grime.

  "I'm here, I'm here." Hoodwink stared at the wall of rubble as the dust cleared. "Just wish we could've held out a bit longer. For anyone else out there."

  Jacob patted Hoodwink on the back. "If your man Tanner is with them, they'll find a way." He pointed at the refugees crowding out the tunnel. "You saved their lives. That's something to be proud of. And you've ensured the safety of the Dwarf, and the Boxes. You did right. I didn't think much of you when I first saw you. Indeed, I thought you were a stuck-up fool. But I understand now why you're legendary among the New Users. You've more than lived up to your legend. More."

  Hoodwink forced a smile. He should've been glowing, he supposed. But truth be told, those words bothered him to the core.

  Hoodwink and his companions made their way through the sewers behind the packed, stinking mass of humanity. The cries of children broke the air alongside the weeping of widows and the moans of the injured. Thankfully the tunnel widened so that the refugees could fan out a little.

  "Where should we go?" refugees often asked along the way. "We might wander for hours through these sewers."

  "Make your way to the other outlets," Jacob would say. "Or the manholes. That's the best advice I can give."

  Hoodwink pulled Jacob aside after a few more of these questions, and asked him, "Can't we just take them to the New User headquarters? That's where you're going, isn't it?"

  "The headquarters won't hold them all," Jacob said.

  "What about a few of them?"

  "Hoodwink, believe me when I tell you, the headquarters are small. Tiny. No bigger than this tunnel. It's better if the refugees make their own way out of here."

  In time, the sewer branched into four passageways of equal size. Refugees crowded each branch equally, apparently trusting their lives to a random choice. Hoodwink overlaid a map of the sewer system atop his vision, and he saw that there were outlets at the end of each branch, some farther away than others, but outlets nonetheless. As long as the refugees kept to one of the four main passages, they would eventually find an exit. Hopefully they didn't find themselves stepping into the waiting arms of Direwalkers.

  "We take the right branch," Jacob said.

  Soon, Jacob's small group came upon a bunch of refugees crowded beside a ladder.

  "Make way," Hoodwink said. "Make way."

  He shoved through the throng. The ladder led up a cylindrical tunnel to a manhole. Two youths were at the top of the ladder, trying to force the cover open. There'd be a decade's worth of snowpack above the manhole—nothing his sword couldn't handle.

  Hoodwink checked his map. This street was in Luckdown District, quite a ways from the Den. Should be safe.

  "Come down!" he said, and the two youths slid down the ladder.

  Hoodwink climbed to the top and jabbed his fire sword through the bronze manhole, right to the hilt. He made the blade red-hot, and carved a circle. The metal fell in, snowpack and all, and he slid aside, shouting a warning as the cover clanged past.

  Bright sunlight poured down.

  He peered over the rim of snowpack. The street was deserted. Good enough.

  He slid back down. "It's clear!"

  The refugees climbed to freedom, one by one.

  "We could exit here, too," Hoodwink told Jacob.

  Jacob shook his head. "I have to return to the New User Headquarters. But you can go if you like, Hoodwink. You've done your part."

  "I think I'll stay a while longer, I will."

  Jacob led them on. He knew these sewers well it seemed, and he took the different branches without hesitation, slowly moving away from any outlets.

  "I've lived under the city for nearly ten years," Jacob said, by way of explanation. "Since Ari recruited me, back when I was fourteen years old."

  "That's a long time to live in a sewer," Hoodwink said.

  Jacob shrugged. "No one ever said the life of a New User was luxurious."

  Hoodwink opened up a few more manholes for other isolated groups of refugees along the way, and soon only Jacob and his small band remained in this set of tunnels. Briar had attached himself to the group somewhere along the way, Hoodwink noticed. The man had actually stayed through it all, despite the many chances he'd had to flee into the streets above. Hoodwink supposed his brother-in-law felt safe around him. Or maybe he remained out of some ill-placed sense of loyalty. Unwise, Briar.

  Hoodwink smiled sadly. Ah Cora, wish you were here. I would have loved to show you Ari again. And at least you wouldn't have judged me for what I am about to do. You would have understood. Not like these men.

  He remembered her last words.

  Destroy everything. But bring her back.

  He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again he resolutely shoved his way forward to grab the chain that bound the Dwarf to Jacob.

  He drew his fire sword.

  "Hoodwink!" Jacob said. "What is the meaning of this?"

  Hoodwink chopped down with the sword and cleaved the chain in two. He caught the severed end and pulled the Dwarf to his side.


  Hoodwink backed away from the others, who were looking at him with surprise. He kept his sword pointed at them all.

  "Why?" Jacob said.

  That word jabbed worse than any sword could. He could hear the disappointment in the old man's voice, the let-down at having his hero betray him.

  "I've my reasons," Hoodwink said. The Dwarf was smirking proudly beside him. "Tell your men not to make any sudden moves. I know you've all used up your charge. But this sword, it never runs out." He flared the blade to prove his point. His eyes fell upon the two swordsmen who were part of the escort, hard men who'd already drawn their own weapons. "Put them down. As you value your lives."

  "Do it," Jacob told the swordsmen. "It's not worth it. We don't need the Dwarf anyway."

  The swordsmen sheathed their blades. Good enough.

  "Don't try to follow me." The entire group remained still while Hoodwink retreated. When he reached the manhole tunnel they'd just passed, he boosted the Dwarf onto the ladder and climbed up after the gol. He kept looking down, expecting Jacob's men to appear at the bottom. No one came, but he released a stream of flame anyway, as a warning shot, and it melted the frozen sewage below into a stinky puddle.

  "I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me," the Dwarf said, above him.

  Hoodwink didn't answer. At the top, the Dwarf made room, allowing Hoodwink to position himself alongside. He cut through the manhole and the snowpack beyond, let the cover clatter down, then climbed outside and hauled the Dwarf up beside him.

  Jeremy's estate loomed at the end of the street. Hoodwink saw the butchered bodies of the two hundred Denizens Cap and Jacob had sent this way. Those uncollared bodies reddened the snowpack, intermingled with the charred and more numerous bodies of Direwalkers.

  Beyond a wide gate, Hoodwink saw Jeremy's mansion, and the bomb damage Tanner had told him about. It was like a giant mouth had taken a nasty bite out of the mansion's facade.

  Hoodwink advanced, yanking hard on the chain, forcing the Dwarf to stumble over the bodies after him.

  "Wait," the Dwarf said. "Where are we going?"