by Gage Lee
“I’m with you so far,” Hahen said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Continue.”
“And all aspects flow from the Design,” I said. “I know this because of what happened to me in sorcery class, and because I put a bunch of aspects back into the Design today. Which, by the way, is showing some real signs of stress from all the twisting and turning the sages are putting it through.”
Hahen looked like he had a question, so I paused. After a moment of internal debate, though, he shook his head and gestured for me to continue.
“If all that I’ve said so far is true, then I should be able to find any point in the world by examining the Grand Design,” I said. “Every place mortals have been, will be, or are have to exist in that pattern, by definition. Any objections?”
Hahen furrowed his brow as he absorbed the implications of everything I’d said. Again, he seemed ready to raise a point of contention before shaking his head. “No, I can’t see any flaw in the logic so far.”
“Awesome,” I shot back. “Today, I forged a sorcerous bridge between my physical location and the Grand Design. I only sent aspects through, but those are more than just jinsei. They are the seeds of real stuff.”
“I dislike this line of reasoning,” Hahen confessed. “Nothing you are saying has even a remote resemblance to the portal techniques I’ve studied. The more traditional method of creating a portal tunnels through the physical layer of reality to bring two points closer together. What you are suggesting means transporting physical beings to a spiritual realm.”
That was worrisome. On the other hand... “I’m not like anyone who’s ever used a portal technique before. This one is different. Trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Hahen said. “I just don’t want you to die attempting the impossible.”
A chuckle escaped before I could suppress it. Most of the past five, no, six years of my life had me dangling over a knife’s edge of disaster, surviving by doing the impossible time and again. And this theory wasn’t entirely untested. I’d taken my battle forces to the heart of the Design to fight Xaophis and ignited the new Empyrean Flame. But this time I wouldn’t have the primal power of creation backing my play. I also remembered nothing after the moment of ignition.
How had we gotten back to the mortal realm?
I’d figure it out.
“Look,” I said to Hahen, “this isn’t the first time I’ve done something dangerous. Even working in Tycho’s lab is risky. I push myself to the limit every day. Rachel had a trap inside her thread of fate. The next one I stumble across might not be a message. But if I do this, then the Guardians can’t keep me prisoner at the School.”
Hahen’s skepticism didn’t abate even a smidge. “You do not have to do this. You want to do it, because if your experiment works you can go visit your friends.”
The old spirit was too clever by half. That was, in fact, my real motive. I was homesick, though not for my actual home. I missed my friends. With the holidays coming, I wanted to reach out to them and mend some fences. This was one big step toward doing that and getting their help on finishing this quest. I had to try. “You’re right,” I said. “But those visits are important to me. And to the quest.”
“Perhaps you are right. Tell me the rest.”
I relaxed a little. “Okay,” I said. “If I can locate a point in the Grand Design, then I can open a bridge to that point using the technique I learned today.”
“Like you did when you defeated Xaophis,” he said.
“Sort of.” I frowned. “I had the Flame’s power then. This is all me. But the theory is the same. Bridge into the Design at the point that represents the physical location I’m aiming for, then another bridge from that point on the Design back to the mortal realm. Behold: a gate.”
The theory was sound, I knew it.
“If you get stranded there, no one can help,” Hahen whispered. “There is no rescue team. You will be lost for all time.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “I’ll be back.”
“Very well,” Hahen said with a sigh. “I believe you can do it, but I will haunt you forever if I’m wrong.”
“I’m not sure how that’s any different from what you’re doing now,” I said. “Okay, here we go.”
“Don’t you need a ritual circle or—”
“No.”
I closed my eyes and plunged my mind into deep meditation. The Grand Design loomed before me, like a bird’s-eye view of the biggest, most complex city I’d ever seen. Beautiful arcs and intricate patches of silver light showed the course of all things and people in the mortal realm. It was an amazing, impossible structure, and I felt awed by the part I’d played in its creation.
And terrified by what I saw.
Because there were tangles and snarls in the Design, patches that had been shifted out of line to unleash dangers and ruin. Pockets of elemental aspects spilled outside the boundaries created for them to destroy pieces of the pattern they should never have touched. Mortal meddling was once again threatening to destroy the purest act of creation.
This horrifying vision would be enough to convince my friends to help me complete the Flame’s quest. If not for my sake, then to save the world as we knew it.
But first, I had to find them.
“Okay, Eric,” I thought to myself, “where are you?”
The connection I’d shared with my friend might have been frayed by whatever drove us apart, but it was still strong and clear as a farcaster signal from the next room over. I felt a pull toward a certain section of the pattern the instant his name popped into my head. I focused all my attention on that point until I saw a thread of fate rising from a looping arc at the edge of the Design. It soared toward the mortal realm, powerful and sturdy. I followed it with my attention, and Eric’s presence grew around me. This was his Thread.
And it was split, just like Rachel’s had been.
Without Tycho to watch me, I could explore this phenomenon to my heart’s content. The point where the thread of fate split in two directions looked clean and precise, as if it had been sliced with a surgical blade. There was nothing natural about that separation. Someone had done it, and I would bet their initials were Sage Tycho Reyes. I was at the end of my rope with this guy. It was one thing to come after me, another to attempt world domination by messing around with the Grand Design, but it was something else entirely to drag my friends into his schemes. He’d learn to pick on someone of his own power, even if I had to kill him again to drive the message home.
My agitation affected my thoughts, and I struggled to maintain the connection to Eric. I resolved not to let my mind wander again. If that happened while I was in motion through the Design, the results would not be pretty. It was time to focus my thoughts and put my theory to the test. One deep breath in, one deep breath out.
Begin.
My serpents went to work at the speed of thought, clicking and clacking like a steam-driven knitting machine running far over the red line. Strands of jinsei flew up between my core and the Grand Design, anchoring me to the exact point in time and space where Eric was at that precise moment. As each new thread of silver sacred energy sprang into being, the image of my friend grew stronger.
He was older now, his hair cut regulation short, so his scalp showed through. His eyes were the same crystal blue as they’d always been, but there were faint lines forming around them, marks etched into his face by the things he’d seen and done. He was bulkier and harder than the last time I’d seen him, a true warrior. And he stood on a strange plain, mists swirling around his feet as he shouted at someone, or something.
Perfect.
I activated the Gate of the Design.
The terrifying screech of tearing metal ripped through my head.
The world shredded.
And I was gone.
The Explosion
FOR A TERRIFYING SLICE of eternity I was neither here nor there, nor anywhere in between. A kaleidoscope of images and sounds cr
ashed into my eyes and ears, overwhelming my senses. It was as if I could see everything, everywhere, all at once.
And then I stood on a flat black plain, mist swirling around my boots. A small squad of Guardians stood at the ready to my right, their armored fists clenched around fusion blades. Tents and Quonset huts spread out behind them within a perimeter of jinsei-charged razor wire.
They looked ready to kill someone.
Probably me.
But it was Eric, standing a few feet to my left, who truly worried me. He didn’t look happy to see his old friend Jace.
There was fury in his eyes and fire in his fists. When he spoke, his words were gravelly and choked with anger. “What are you doing here?”
I was so surprised by my friend’s reaction I didn’t know how to respond. I’d expected surprise, but not rage. Whatever had happened between Eric and me must have been serious. Best to tiptoe through the minefield this conversation had become.
“I wanted to see you,” I said, honestly.
“You’ve seen me,” Eric shot back. “Now get lost. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
The Guardians moved closer, fanning out into a semicircle that trapped me between their blades and Eric’s fury. They were still out of melee range, but only by a step. This was not how I’d imagined my conversation with an old friend.
“Whatever happened—”
“Whatever happened?” Eric unleashed a jinsei-powered shout that rocked me back onto my heels. Fire oozed from between his fingers and splashed onto the misty plain, sizzling and popping as it cooled against the featureless ground. “Don’t stand there and act like you don’t remember how we almost killed each other.”
That wasn’t good.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked. “Without a bunch of swords at my back, preferably. I just want to talk.”
Pain and anger warred in Eric’s eyes. So many fierce emotions clogged his aura I could scarcely see his core. It was a surprise to find he was still at artist level, but the coils of jinsei wrapped around his center were even more of a surprise.
Someone had put a nasty spell on Eric. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was supposed to do without more time and a closer look, but it might have prevented his advancement.
“If you try anything,” Eric said, “these Guardians will be on top of you in the blink of an eye. Follow me.”
The threat was unnerving, but at least the Resplendent Sun was willing to hear me out. He’d seemed more likely to demand a duel.
My friend stormed away, and I followed him. The Guardians and their camp receded as we traveled deeper into the plain. I recognized this place, and it worried me.
“Why did the military set up a base on the Far Horizon?” I asked. “The Locust Court is gone, and there hasn’t been a threat from this direction since Kyoto.”
Eric glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t stop walking. “Kyoto wasn’t the end,” he said. “You, of all people, should know that.”
His words were like a key for the vault that held my memories. Pieces and parts of a past I hadn’t lived slipped free, showing me hungry spirits appearing through purple-ringed portals in cities all over the world. It was nothing like the mess I’d dealt with at Grayson’s trial, but even a single Locust Court spirit in the mortal realms was too many.
The rush of memories faded, leaving me shaken. There was still so much I didn’t understand. “But why are you here?”
Eric stopped walking. When he turned to face me, his eyes were dark and bitter as week-old coffee. “You came all this way to start that fight again?”
More images cascaded through my thoughts. Fire raining down around me. Eric howling, his arm impaled on one of my serpents. Stones shattering, glass breaking. Clem screaming for us to stop, that we’d kill each other if we kept at it. We were fighting because...
“Tycho,” I growled as the memory snapped into focus. The headmaster had wanted Eric to stay in the Battle Federation, not as a fighter, but as a recruiter for the School. There was more to it, but the rest was too fuzzy.
“Yeah.” Eric sounded less angry and more defeated when he said that. “He and the rest of the sages did a number on me when I refused to play ball. But that’s old news. Why are you acting like you don’t know this?”
“Because I don’t,” I said. Beating around the bush wouldn’t get me anywhere. “The sages are messing with the Design, and that’s scrambled my memories. Whatever they did to you is part of this. I need your help—”
“Of course.” Eric shook his head. “Chasing after this quest has nearly gotten me killed and made me run off to join the Guardians. I get to spend the rest of my life out here hunting monsters because of you. I’ve done enough.”
Those words stung because they were all true. If Eric hadn’t helped me fix the Design, his fate would have led him to the highest levels of the Battle Federation. He’d have become the champ. But he’d sacrificed the easy way to help save the world.
“It’s not fair,” I admitted. “But if you don’t help me, Tycho and the other sages win. Everything that’s happened to you will have been for nothing.”
The fire around Eric’s head blazed white hot. “It’s already for nothing.”
One second I was standing a few feet away from Eric, and the next I was staring up at the dead sky of the Far Horizon, flat on my back, a dozen yards away. My ears rang like a struck gong, and there was blood in my mouth. Pain radiated from my sternum in agonizing waves. The smell of burning meat filled my nostrils.
Wait. Not burning meat.
Burning me.
“Get up,” Eric shouted. “It’s time to finish this.”
A blast of fire tore up the ground next to my right shoulder and showered me with sparks. Another flaming missile landed just short of my feet and blasted a crater in the plain. Eric was not kidding.
My serpents pushed me back up onto my feet, then hurled me hard to the left to avoid a ball of fire as big as my head. That had barely passed me when I juked back to the right to dodge its twin, with a third fireball on its way.
“Are you nuts?” I shouted, activating the Thief’s Shield. “You could have killed me.”
“That’s the idea,” Eric yelled. “I was over it, Jace. Then you came back to stir it all up again.”
My opponent had the advantage at any range, but if I got my hands on Eric, the shield would drain his strength and give us a few minutes to talk before he recovered. A jinsei-fueled leap carried me across the distance between us.
But Eric was ready for that tactic. He aimed both hands at the ground and poured fire where I was about to land. The ground deformed under the intense heat, and the dark substance of the Far Horizon transformed into glowing magma.
This was not going the way I’d planned at all.
My serpents flared out and dug into the ground surrounding the crater Eric had created. That stopped my fall, and my shield protected me from the blazing caldera I’d nearly landed on, but my friend was already winding up for another attack.
“Knock it off!” I willed my serpents to propel me away from a flurry of burning darts. “I came here to talk.”
But Eric couldn’t hear me anymore. The sorcery wrapped around his core burned like a dying star. Now that it was active, I saw how it twisted his mind and fueled his anger. It all made sense. That’s how Tycho and the other sages had altered his destiny. We’d fought because they’d used jinsei sorcery to mess with his head.
If I could undo that spell, maybe he’d get back on the right path.
Easy. All I had to do was unravel the work of the world’s five most powerful mortals. While my battle-hardened friend tried to kill me.
Piece of cake.
Eric and I circled one another, each looking for an opening in the other’s defenses. I kept my serpents curled around me to defend against fiery missiles, while Eric stayed out of their range.
The fiery halo grew so bright it hid his face from me and cloaked his eyes in deep shadows. He
looked like an avenging angel fallen to Earth, and I’d never been so afraid of a fight in my life.
Because Eric wouldn’t hold back. The spell wrapped around his core would drive him to an all-out assault that would overwhelm my defenses. He was so strong, I worried the only way to stop him would be to kill him.
“You took everything from me,” Eric snarled, his voice trembling with a volatile mixture of rage and sorrow. “It’s time to pay for that.”
Fire erupted from Eric in a blinding, white-hot wave. It rolled across the space between us, filling the air with heat haze distortion and kicking up bowling-ball-sized chunks of the ground as it shot toward me.
The wall of fire was too wide and tall to dodge, and it would burn away my Thief’s Shield and still have enough oomph to kill me. The Vision of the Design chose that moment to show me a pair of futures, both of which ended with me rolling around on the ground, burning.
But if the Design could show me a bad ending, it could also give me a good one. I activated the Gate of the Design and locked my new destination in mind.
The Far Horizon warped around me with the sickening yowl of a scalded cat. My stomach jumped into my throat as my body jumped from one location to another at the speed of thought. For a terrifying moment, I felt sure I’d pitch over onto my face. But my serpents braced me, and I stayed on my feet.
Eric, all his concentration bent on the wall of flame he’d launched, didn’t realize I’d moved behind him. When the fire cleared away and he saw no sign of his target, it was already too late.
“Gotcha,” I said.
My serpents lashed out, the dull back of their blades hammering at Eric’s defenses. His core was nearly my equal, but only nearly. Unprepared for my vicious attack, the best he could do was throw his arms up to protect his head while I bludgeoned him to his knees.
At the same time, I studied the spell that surrounded Eric’s core. It was too complex to unravel, and someone clever had shielded it against direct attacks. Slicing its strands apart with my blades was out of the question.
But those defenses were only good from the outside. An attack from within was a different story.