Behind that door, time did not move the way it did elsewhere. Franchine had not been content with being able to live there for an eternity or until he tired and chose to go to that long and unending slumber. He had wanted to take the weapon back into his universe and start a war that would see him as ruler of all.
Lornia walked through Tralam. The sky, a strange rusty-hued thing, peered in through the broken rooftops. Once upon a time, the idea of breathing air that came from outside that fortress had terrified her. Franchine’s experiments upon her body had ensured that no atmosphere would harm her lungs or heart.
That crippled her with sorrow every time she thought about it, so she shoved it aside and kept moving. The old cryo chambers hung in a haunted silence. The hallways were narrow and winding. The old bulkhead doors had long since stopped working, and many had been closed to prevent the beasts from being able to chase them down. They’d never been opened since.
Sometimes she heard a dim or wounded roar from behind those walls. There were still beasts within the closed-off sections of the fortress, she was sure of it, but the doors that penned them in still held, and while she was lonely and often frightened of how silent it usually was, she was not willing to open those doors to see if any beasts remained.
The beasts were deadly before. If any truly lived, if she were really hearing their faint voices and not just her own imagination, they would be far more vicious now.
The doors that had simply stopped functioning led to bedchambers. That bothered her. That the hallways that had once led to the rooms where so many that she had known and loved lay empty and feathered with centuries-thick dust made her heart sore, so she never went through the half-opened doors and never looked at the ones that were completely shut.
Lornia went straight to the gardens. The roof there was intact; the giant dome that created sun and shade had always held a testament to the design of it. The gardens were lush and rich and in the very center stood the well springs, warm, bubbling waters fringed with greenery. Lornia stepped into those waters, her eyes closing as she submerged herself.
The water was warmer below. The springs bubbled and spilled from pipes cleverly concealed along little panels that ran around the perimeter of the pool. The water stayed fresh because of the plants, which oxygenated the water and cleaned it as well.
She swam hard, her body flexing and straining as she went.
That feeling, that someone was nearing, persisted despite the strenuous exercise, and when she broke the surface again, her mood had gone from grim and frightened to curious and hopeful.
Could it be possible?
Drake said, “And you thought the ice was bad.”
Talon groaned. “You know, I really thought that planet your crazy brother lived on was a bitch to get in and out of. I was wrong. This one’s worse.”
Blade spoke up from behind them. “I can aid in the flight.”
Drake wanted to say no. The last thing he wanted was for Blade to step in and assist. But the truth was the watery world that was their next opponent was dangerous as hell. He’d only ever made it through it before because of dumb luck and because, on the way back, a strong grav pull had sucked his ship right through there and practically hurtled it past the fire- and ice-laden planets beyond.
He made his jaw loosen even though it wanted to clench. “That’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. Blade’s name was already one for the books. So was Talon’s, and so was the name of every one of Talon’s siblings. They would go down in history as powerful beings who had done something great and perhaps terrible, but that thing would change forever the shape of the universe.
It was his turn to be noted in history!
Drake’s common sense stepped in. He chided himself for those thoughts. They were childish almost, and that bothered him. He’d never known how strong his ambitions were until he had set out to find Tralam the first time and now that he did know in which direction his ambitions lay, he was not always comfortable with his reasons for this journey.
What makes a man one whose name is heard through the ages?
That had been the question posed to him most often by his father and Drake had known, as he had watched Blade wreak a trail of destruction against the Federation and commit crime after crime, all of them directed toward that same Federation, that Blade’s name would be remembered for centuries, and maybe beyond because his exploits were so much larger than life.
And he had also felt the pressure to be just as important to both his time and the times beyond it. General Bates had been a demanding father, but his biggest demand was that his second and mostly unwanted son bring great glory to the family name.
Oh sure, Blade had already brought a lot of fame to himself, but since nobody knew he was a Bates back then, and what he’d been doing hadn’t been something the general could be proud of, at least not until Bates had decided to revolt against the Federation too, it had been up to Drake to balance out those deeds and to become the man his father would brag about and be proud of.
Blade looked over at him, and a sickle-shaped smile played out on Blade’s lips. Drake had the uneasy feeling that Blade had just read his mind, and was amused by how churlish he was feeling—and the reasons for that churlishness too.
Drake shut off his thought. The world made of water loomed up, and Talon muttered, “What in the name of all the old gods is this?”
“Death,” Drake said in as calm a tone as he could manage. “If we aren’t careful.”
Talon said, “I can’t swim, so I’d advise us all to be very careful.”
The tension broke in a wave of laughter from all three of their mouths. The ship sailed onward, right into the grav pull that threatened to hurtle them down and onto the roiling surface of the watery world below.
Blade asked, “I wonder what sorts of beasts dwell in those depths?”
Drake said, “I would much rather not find out.”
