A World of Secrets (The Firewall Trilogy)

by James Maxwell

  Vance returned his attention to the cave. A series of detonations now came from beyond the three peaks, farther into the desert. The heavens groaned. A howl filled the sky. A thunderous roar came from all directions at once.

  Whatever was happening, all Vance could think was that the world was ending. The ground heaved, almost knocking him off his feet. A sharp crack sounded behind him. He saw the summit of the tallest of the three peaks tilt to the side as it sheared from the rest of the formation. In slow motion the immense spire of rock tumbled down until it smashed to pieces on the ground below.

  Vance thought about Taimin and Selena.

  He realized he might never see them again.

  37

  Taimin and Selena sprinted along a corridor of fire.

  Taimin was just behind Selena. He had two good legs and could run at a speed he had once only dreamed of, but right now all he could think about was escape. Explosions came from all quarters. Heat waves rolled behind him and scorched his skin. He and Selena leaped through blazing circles and raced past walls of solid flame.

  He blinked sweat from his eyes and saw a patch of aurelium that was still green. He grabbed Selena’s arm to yank her away from the wall. A moment later it burst into flame behind them. Neither of them looked back.

  The ground suddenly heaved. As the floor buckled, Taimin skidded to a halt while Selena was nearly thrown from her feet. The gray surface split apart, tearing in multiple places that crashed against each other until the tremor subsided.

  Selena glanced over her shoulder, her face filled with fear as fire raced toward them. She put her head down and leaped over the crevice in front of her, then turned and waved at Taimin to follow. With wide cracks everywhere, Taimin was forced to jump from a standing position. He fell short, but Selena grabbed his arm as he teetered with just one foot on solid ground. She pulled him toward her, a brief look of surprise on her face when she noticed his new dexterity.

  He followed Selena as she leaped from one solid place to the next until they were past the section of broken floor. Flames sped toward them. As Taimin opened his stride, a rush of air screamed from somewhere deep in the machine’s belly. Rumbles and hisses combined with a cacophony of booms. Aurelium popped in the air and crackled like meat on a spit. Where once the air was cold, now it was hot beyond belief.

  Selena’s face was red as she ran and her eyes looked wild. The air in Taimin’s chest burned with every gasp. Meanwhile the torrent of fire pursued them down the tunnel.

  Selena gave a cry. Taimin saw the reason a moment later: a pile of rubble littered the ground, and then the vertical tear in the gray wall beckoned. She didn’t look back as she jumped through the hole and Taimin was right behind her.

  He nearly stumbled over the fallen rocks, but Selena grabbed his arm to steady him. He skidded on the gravel, but she was there to help him. There was now rock overhead, but they weren’t past danger yet. The bucking ground threw them from side to side.

  As he clambered over the rubble, Taimin looked back at the crevice that had once glowed green. Even as he watched, a powerful explosion released a cloud of fire and smoke through the opening, sending hot air rushing toward him. He grabbed Selena and pulled her to the ground, so that they were both flat on the cavern’s floor as heat swept over their heads. An angry roar accompanied the biggest detonation yet.

  Taimin picked himself up and helped Selena to her feet. They stumbled together along the path through the cavern, ducked under the overhang, and clambered to the place where the walls opened up toward the cavern’s narrow mouth.

  Taimin threw himself toward the open air; he could hear the sound of another explosion building. It began as a rush of air, like a massive beast preparing to exhale. A resounding boom was loud enough to hurt his ears. The sound grew louder. He put on a last burst of speed.

  He and Selena left the cave and flung themselves forward. Smoke and heat poured from behind them and rolled over the open ground. All Taimin knew was that he was flat on his stomach and Selena was beside him. The smoke billowed forward. He coughed as it entered his lungs. The roar was deafening.

  Gradually, the sound faded.

  The smoke began to disperse. Taimin realized he could see. He lifted his head and saw Selena looking back at him. Grime coated her face and her eyes were red from the smoke.

  He took stock of himself. He was on open ground, lying on the dirt. The cavern he had just left was behind him, at the base of the peak that nestled into the wall of the basin. He glanced over his shoulder. Smoke continued to trickle from the cave, but it appeared that the worst of the destruction was over.

  He raised his gaze and saw figures through the shifting smoke.

  Taimin staggered to his feet. Selena was already standing. Some of the onlookers were lean and others stocky. Arrayed in front of them, hazy in the smoke, were skalen, bax, humans, and even a mantorean and a trull.

  As the smoke continued to thin, Taimin saw Vance, whose mouth dropped open. A moment later, Ruth gave a shout. Lars shook his head in amazement. They hurried to help Taimin and Selena away from the cave.

  “Taimin.” Vance’s dusty face was grim. “What about the . . . ?”

  Taimin followed Vance’s gaze. “Still in there.”

  Now with a healthy distance separating them from the smoking mouth of the cave, the five humans turned to watch. Members of the other races stood with them, a short distance away. Soon Vance turned to Taimin. “There’s no way—”

  A figure stumbled through the opening.

  She was the smaller of the two giants. Her gray robe and the pack on her back were singed and her face was black with soot. Taimin remembered her taller companion throwing her forward even as fire enveloped his body.

  She took a few lurching steps, but was clearly unable to continue farther. Her dark eyes became unfocused. Despite her rows of sharp teeth, the ridges on her face, and her short, pointed horns, she didn’t look as fearsome anymore. She collapsed to her knees before turning her head to stare back at the entrance, where black smoke continued to billow.

  Taimin saw Selena glance his way. He knew what she was thinking. Surely it must be over.

  Another explosion made everyone jump. Flame burst from the cave to light up the surrounding landscape. The detonation that followed resounded throughout the desert.

  Selena gasped.

  The giant with the curling horns emerged from the mouth of the cave.

  He was in a wretched state. His skin was charred, and his horns were blackened to the color of coal. His lips were gone, so that all that remained of his face were his yellow teeth and burning eyes. A few tatters of clothing clung to his body. His fingers were short stumps. He barely made it out of the cavern before he stopped.

  Like a felled tree, he tilted forward and collapsed. As he lay face down onto the ground, Taimin watched and waited, but the strange creature that had attacked him, let him live, and then healed him to fight again, was completely still. Taimin had been hunted. But the monster who had pursued him across the wasteland was dead.

  The scene was now eerily silent. Smoke continued to billow out of the cave mouth, but the plume was smaller than before. A large group of onlookers stared at the two creatures of an unknown race. One was dead. The other began to crawl toward her fallen companion.

  Taimin felt the ground begin to tremble.

  This time the rumbling came from deep beneath his feet. Stones tumbled down the sides of the tall peaks. The cave they were standing in front of collapsed. Cracks formed along the peaks themselves.

  Lars looked in all directions. “We should get out of here.”

  “Good idea,” said the trull nearby.

  The ground shook with fury. Taimin climbed up the slope on two strong legs. He saw stunned looks from Ruth, Vance, and Lars. He would explain when he had time.

  From the top of the ridge, Taimin looked back the way he had come. Rocks littered the ground near the female giant and her dead companion. For a moment Taimin thought
that she might be trying to heal him with her black box, but her posture told him she was simply grieving.

  The trembling began to subside. In front of Taimin, the rippling dunes of the desert opened up, revealed in the low light of the setting sun. The strip of red sky clung to the horizon, marking out the firewall, contrasting with the dark blue above it.

  Everyone from skalen to bax stopped as soon as they left the rocky basin, unwilling to leave solid ground. Sand might shift and provide its own dangers.

  They were all watching when it happened.

  The sands erupted into the air. The vast machine buried under the desert announced its death with an ear-splitting roar. A swirl of black smoke and yellow dust filled the sky and then slowly the sand rained back down to the ground.

  A wind began to blow.

  The wind grew stronger as it swept across the desert. The cloud of black smoke began to disperse. The stiff breeze tugged at Selena’s hair. It rustled Taimin’s clothing. At first it was dry and hot, the wind of the wasteland.

  But then it changed.

  The wind became cool. It carried with it a fresh smell of moisture that Taimin had never experienced before. The air above the desert was soon clear of dust. The breeze continued to blow, scouring the wasteland, sweeping the heat away.

  “Look!” one of the bax called.

  The horizon was changing color. The red band of sky lightened, becoming soft pink, tinged with blue. The sinister haze of the firewall was vanishing, blurring into the rest of the azure sky. Soon the horizon was blue, all the way to the desert and beyond.

  The skalen clan leader, Kash, turned wide eyes on Taimin. “What just happened?”

  Taimin returned his attention back to the basin, and the smaller of the two giants, who still knelt beside her fallen companion. “I think it’s time we found out.”

  38

  There were no more tremors. The machine was gone and had taken its secrets with it.

  As he crossed the floor of the basin, Taimin’s eyes were on the female giant, still hunched over her dead companion. Her pack rested beside her. Broken rocks littered the ground nearby.

  Taimin was the first to stop in front of her.

  A group of figures soon surrounded them. Everyone stood and watched warily. Arrayed around Taimin were the five races of the wasteland.

  Taimin regarded the strange creature in front of him as the cool, moist wind continued to blow. She had no hair, but the breeze ruffled her gray robe. The setting sun bathed her face in the last rays of daylight. Her face was expressive. She had feelings. The loss of her companion meant something to her.

  He checked that she wasn’t carrying a weapon, before remembering that he had never seen her do anything but watch her companion fight. Her pack was large, but her companion hadn’t carried a pack at all. She had held Taimin in an iron grip, it was true, but only so she could heal him.

  “Who are you?” Taimin asked.

  As he spoke, he was flanked by the large group of onlookers, all waiting to hear her reply. The silence dragged out.

  She raised her head. “I am Ingren.” Her voice was rasping, but he could easily understand her.

  Taimin frowned. “What are you?”

  “I am a female of the bonded. I am . . . was . . . advisor to my bondmate, Ungar.” She indicated the charred body.

  Taimin looked from the body back to Ingren. “Where do you come from?”

  “Outside this wasteland. My bondmate and I crossed the firewall, which you probably understand is now gone.”

  Taimin exchanged glances with Selena. Despite the evidence of his eyes, he still couldn’t believe it. The wasteland was just a small portion of a larger world. The firewall was gone.

  Ingren sighed as she stared at her dead companion. “Ungar was always rash,” she said. “I suppose his quest was the last there will ever be.”

  “What’s happening to you?” Selena asked.

  Taimin noticed that Ingren’s short, pointed horns were changing color. Where before they were a drab, pale yellow, the shade was becoming brighter, shifting toward gold.

  “Now that my bond is broken, I am changing,” Ingren said. “I am no longer an advisor, because I have no warrior to advise.”

  Taimin struggled to understand. He saw Lars scratching at his thick black beard. Vance cast him a bemused expression.

  “We should bind her,” Kash said.

  Still kneeling on the ground, Ingren gazed up at the skalen clan leader. “I will not fight you. I cannot. Among my race, only warriors fight.”

  Taimin spoke up. “She is speaking the truth, though I’ll admit I don’t understand it.” He pondered for a time and then addressed Ingren again. “Your . . . bondmate. Why did he want me dead so badly?”

  Ingren shrugged. “He was a warrior . . . a hunter. You were the hunted. He was on a quest. It was no choice of mine. The warriors are in ascendancy. We must do as our bondmates command.”

  “What does this all mean?” Lars asked. “Are we free to go to the green lands?”

  Ingren gave a harsh, croaking sound that Taimin guessed was laughter. “Free?” She seemed amused as she gave her attention to the assembled figures. “None of you were ever free.”

  Her reaction made Taimin angry. He had to learn more. “Your pack. What’s in it?” He nodded. “Open it.”

  With a resigned air, Ingren turned to her pack. A moment later, she lifted it into the air to upend it.

  A collective gasp spread throughout the onlookers.

  Heads tumbled out of the pack to roll onto the ground. Taimin stared at them in shock. The heads were perfectly preserved, and all came from a larger than average member of the wasteland’s races. The only thing missing was the head of a human.

  “Ungar was on a quest to take five trophies,” Ingren said. Her dark eyes rested on Taimin. “He had a special interest in you, Taimin. You have a reputation.”

  Taimin finally found his voice. “I want answers.”

  Ingren scanned the circle of figures around her and then slowly climbed to her feet. She wasn’t quite half again as tall as Taimin, but she nonetheless towered over him.

  She considered for a moment. “Everything has now changed. You will all soon be destroyed. There can be no harm in sharing knowledge before you die.”

  Her words sent a chill along Taimin’s spine.

  “There is a war underway,” Ingren said.

  She said it in a simple, flat tone. It wasn’t what Taimin had expected her to say. He wanted to know the truth about the world he lived in.

  Selena’s brow furrowed. She pointed in the direction of the now-vanished firewall. “Out there?”

  “No,” Ingren said firmly. She pointed up at the heavens. The first pinpricks of light dotted the violet sky. “Beyond this world. In the stars.”

  “Eh?” the trull grunted. She exchanged glances with the mantorean beside her. “I don’t understand.”

  “That does not surprise me,” Ingren said, amused again.

  “Who is the war between?” Kash asked hesitantly.

  “Between my race and yours. Between the bonded and the five allies.” Ingren’s gaze moved from Kash and then to the bax leader, before traveling to the mantorean, the trull beside her, and finally resting on Taimin. “You are all represented here.”

  The onlookers turned their heads to look at each other with new eyes. Taimin’s mind was spinning. Skalen and bax, trull, mantorean, and human, all shared the same manner of speech. He already knew that the bonded didn’t speak the same language.

  “This world is our homeworld,” Ingren continued. “Our great city, Agravida, lies a very long distance in that direction.” She cast a swift glance over her shoulder. “You are the five allies. You work together to defeat us, but our will is strong, and ultimately, we will be victorious.”

  Taimin stared up at the heavens, perplexed. “Go on.”

  “You may have difficulty grasping this idea, but the stars you see in the night sky are suns, like th
e two suns of this world. Most suns have worlds circling them. Sometimes those worlds are inhabited.”

  Ingren paused to allow her words to sink in.

  “At the same time, in space, the region between the stars, the distances are vast. As a result, the war I speak of has been raging for many, many years. It has been underway for several of my lifetimes.”

  Taimin swallowed. His whole life, since he was a boy, he had wanted to see new places, to seek out new opportunities, and after his time in the mysterious city of Zorn, to learn the truth about the world he lived in.

  Each piece of the puzzle had revealed a greater secret. The map in the tower led to the machine that powered the firewall. The wasteland was a creation of the bonded, who considered the races inside it to be their enemies.

  Ingren glanced from face to face and then spoke into the silence. “Early on in the war,” she said, “we took captives from colonies, and from ships we captured.” She rested her eyes on Lars, who was scratching his beard. “Ships are machines used to travel from one world to another,” she explained. “You are the descendants of those captives. We built this place for you. You are our prisoners. You always have been.”

  Beside Taimin, Selena drew in a sharp breath. Vance and Ruth were both pale. Lars looked shocked. But they weren’t alone. The watching bax and skalen were as stunned as the humans. The trull and mantorean were staring at each other.

  “We only took prisoners at the beginning of the war, and there were not very many of you,” Ingren said. “You have lost the use of writing. You have no history. It is not surprising that over the generations you have forgotten who you are, and how you came to be here.”

  “But why?” Taimin demanded. “Why keep us here?”

  “Is it not obvious? Our warriors have urges, and this is their hunting ground. There was a time when all warriors had to prove themselves by the taking of trophies,” she shrugged, “but since we abandoned the outpost, the practice has fallen into disuse. Only those seeking the highest office now follow the old traditions. Or followed, I should say, for clearly things cannot go back to the way they were.”