The Forever Gate 01-05 Compendium Edition by Isaac Hooke

Author:Isaac Hooke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tanner watched Ari and the Direwalker plunge to their deaths.

The wind buffeted him, striving to take him from the wall. But he watched.

Ari and the Direwalker rebounded from the wall several times as they fell, and finally vanished in the snowstorm.

Tanner sheathed the fire sword. One of the side handles of the cursed Box was in his mouth, and he bit down harder on it. He was so angry at himself, and at her, that he just kept biting down. Soon all his gol-strength was focused on that task. One of the teeth near the back of his mouth couldn't take the pressure and exploded. He didn't care. He bit down. Bit down. Bit down.

Blood trickled over his chin.

He relented at last, easing the pressure. Though the Box was designed to handle more abuse than any old chest, he'd break the handle if he wasn't careful.

Tanner climbed through the tears, mechanically, not really aware of his body. The snow gusted around him in freezing gusts. His skin tightened, and icicles formed along his brows, his mustache, his hairline, and his eyes. Who would have thought a body could produce so many icicles?

He climbed.

Though he didn't want to.

No. He had to.

Or else her death was for nothing.

Maybe she'd disbelieved reality before she struck the ground. It was a small hope, but he clung to it nonetheless, like a desperate child who clung to his favorite toy while starving to death.

Twenty minutes passed.

He made it to the point where the second rope overlapped the first, and, twining his arm around the first rope so that he wouldn't fall, he slid the Box between that arm and his chest, holding it there. With his free hand, he knotted the end of the second rope to the handle of the Box. It wasn't easy, tying multiple knots with one hand, but he managed.

He pulled himself up, and swung his legs onto the Box, and sat there a quarter of a mile above the city. He moved cautiously, worried that the handle might break off under his weight at any time, or that the knot would unravel. The city was veiled beneath the storm below.

With his sword he cut the first rope in case Brute was on its way up again. He watched the rope descend in a coil like a falling viper.

He scabbarded the blade and retrieved the handmirror from his cloak. Then he began the process of disbelieving reality. It was difficult, pretending that the reflection was real and that he was the illusion. Difficult, because he kept seeing Ari fall to her death.

But the world blinked early.

***

Tanner awoke in the Outside. Beside him, Ari was a dead weight in his arms. He shook her, called her name, but she didn't move. She hadn't disbelieved reality after all. Of course she hadn't. There wasn't enough time. Her face was pale. Her lips blue.

She would never wake up.

There was only about an hour of oxygen left anyway, so maybe it was for the best.

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