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  Back on New Earth, Erik felt his stomach lurch with a surge of tension. Was it really such a good idea to drive everyone up to a place where their enemies surrounded them? Was he bringing Ghost and the others to their deaths? He didn’t voice his concern, though; their determination to go through with the plan was obvious in the long and swift strides they took as they marched and in the impatience with which they met the delays necessitated by planes flying over them.

  During one of these stops, Erik and Ghost took shelter together in a large concrete pipe, tall enough that Cindella hardly needed to crouch to stand up in it.

  “You doing all right, Ghost?”

  “Sure, how about you?”

  “Fine. I worry about you and Athena and what these armies might do to Saga. Other than that, well, it’s all pretty fascinating. I had no idea there were so many other worlds.”

  Ghost nodded. “I’m the same.” She made herself more comfortable, wedging her backpack between her and the curve of the pipe as she sat against the wall. “Those planes are something of a relief, though.”

  “Really?” Erik was surprised.

  “Yeah. I was beginning to think we might be up against something mindless, like an insect nest or something—just expanding, destroying, and increasing their troops over and over. But those planes, they tell me there are people out there somewhere, looking for us, scared even.”

  “You think they are a response to our battles at the last portal ?”

  “Definitely.” Ghost paused. “You know this is going to end badly, don’t you?”

  “For us?”

  “No. Not necessarily. I just mean it isn’t going to be some pleasant discussion where we explain who we are and they apologize for causing us any alarm and everyone has a laugh.”

  “Yeah. I guess I’ve known that for a while now.”

  “If they were the sort of people who negotiate, or who have a ‘live and let live’ philosophy, they wouldn’t have killed all the sentient people in Myth.”

  Erik signaled for Cindella to nod.

  Ghost gestured with her arms. “So what are you going to do when, say, we reach their capital city, find out who their governing body is, and somehow get to meet them, and they show no interest in doing anything other than killing us and invading Saga?”

  “Find a way to stop them.”

  “Would you fight them?”

  “Not the way you mean. You know I am totally opposed to violence.”

  “So what, then?”

  “Ghost, you are as tough as they come, but you can’t fight a whole other world. And you don’t even have an energy weapon left. We are going to have to figure something else out, like maybe how to close these portals.”

  The point seemed to have struck home, for Ghost sat quietly for a moment. Above them, the roar of the plane faded to a deep hum, growing fainter and fainter. Athena stuck her pale face into the pipe.

  “It’s clear. Come on.”

  By late afternoon they were at the tank factory, lying in a ditch that ran near the wire fence. Given the danger that a plane might fly overhead, they had opted to stay on the ground, near cover, rather than take up positions on the roof again. Stopwatch in hand, Athena was timing the motions of the factory units as they delivered the tank and returned to the factory.

  “Ninety-three seconds. Then the jeep pulls up and they might see us if we are still in the open.”

  “No problem. Shall we do it on the next delivery?” Jodocus looked down the line with his usual impassive expression.

  “All right.” Athena was still looking at the watch. “Someone cut the fence.”

  Cindella drew her Rapier of the Skies.

  “Are you sure there’s no alarm system?” Erik asked.

  “Sure,” replied Athena. “Well, there’s no current in the fence. I suppose if there was a sophisticated motion detector somewhere we could be in trouble, but that doesn’t seem likely here.”

  “So I’ll go ahead, then?” Cindella hesitated still.

  “Yes.”

  Anxious that, despite Athena’s assurances, he might accidentally set off a warning to the units inside the factory, Erik carefully brought Cindella to her feet and up the ditch to stand beside the metal links of the fence. None of the factory units were in sight. She swung the rapier across the metal links at chest height; they parted as easily as if he had been cutting tissue, opening like a mouth. Then, at each end of the cut, Cindella sliced downward. The severed rectangle of chain links swung forward and fell to the ground, leaving ample space for everyone to run through. Cindella dropped back down to the ditch.

  “On my call then,” said Athena. It felt as though they had waited for a long time for the next tank to come out and for the factory units to walk back inside, but it was probably only ten minutes.

  “Go!” ordered Athena in a husky whisper.

  And they were up, out of the ditch, ducking through the hole in the fence and running across the factory yard to where the tank stood, its three hatches open, ready for its crew. Although Erik had been the last to go through the fence, Cindella moved so swiftly that she leaped to the tank ahead of everyone else. He took the middle turret, thinking it might be necessary to assist either those in the front or back in their fights with the arriving soldier units. Soon after Cindella was inside the dark metal chamber, Erik heard thumps and Ghost wriggled down through the back turret. Athena came in next, on top of Cindella. At the same time, Jodocus and Gunnar lowered themselves in through the front hatch.

  “Good,” whispered Athena. “Over thirty seconds to spare.”

  Already, though, they could hear the jeep pulling up and parking. The crisp military steps of the soldier units on the stone yard rang out with increasing volume. They were nearly at the tank. Athena had drawn her tooth-bladed dagger; Cindella was poised with the Dagger of Frozen Hate. As soon as the legs of the soldier blocked the circle of light above them, Cindella grabbed him with her free hand and pulled him down. Two quick stabs and he stopped moving, now merely a mannequin. On either side of them, the sounds of struggle continued, and Erik was just about to try to make his way along the narrow aisles in the tank’s interior to assist his friends when the thrashing of limbs against metal stopped.

  “Close the lids,” someone shouted from up front, probably Gunnar.

  “Wait, I need light to get it started. There.” Athena looked up at Erik proudly, her face illuminated by the interior lights that came on as the tank’s engine shuddered to life. “OK, go ahead and close the hatches.”

  Athena then squeezed past Cindella, but was blocked by the bodies of the soldiers and could not reach the driving seat in front.

  “Rats! There’s no room! And we can’t just chuck these bodies out here. I don’t suppose either of you can drive?”

  “Not me,” replied Gunnar.

  But much to Erik’s surprise, the tank suddenly lurched forward and Jodocus called out, “Take your seats. I’ve got it.”

  From where Cindella was wedged, under the turret, Erik had only a very limited view—constantly shaking—of the road ahead of the tank. An arrangement of mirrors brought the light down into a viewing box and if he really was anxious to keep watch, Erik could place Cindella’s head right up against it. Once he had satisfied himself that they were traveling up the road at a steady distance behind the jeep that had brought the tank crew, Erik had Cindella settle back, only looking through the viewing box now and then to monitor the fading light. It would not be long before the wood elemental triggered their interference signal.

  When the stolen tank had first begun to make its way out of the factory, it had been filled with cheerful and optimistic chatter. But now as they rumbled on up a road that was filling with enemy tanks, all conversation stopped. The radio was on and they could all hear the increasing bursts of noise coming from it. Hopefully, no response would be required from them before their countermeasures came into effect.

  With the sky turning purple, the tension in the tank incre
ased. They had slowed, joining a queue of military vehicles making their way to the portal. At least the timing was about right.

  “I’d be happy if our jamming signal went off now,” Erik whispered to Athena. Cindella was looking through the viewfinder and they were right in among the troops guarding the portal. If for some reason they were spotted, there would be no escape.

  The pattern of the slow merging of lanes in the run up to the portal was obvious and logical. The vehicles took turns entering the last stretch of road before they disappeared into the next world. Inside the tank, the radio was hissing and sputtering excitedly. Had they been challenged? Were they supposed to be broadcasting a reply? Or was Erik just finding patterns in the sounds that reflected the anxiety of his thoughts? With the restricted view he had of the sky, it was impossible to tell whether the sun had gone below the horizon, but the clouds ahead were a very deep red. Surely sunset must be soon. Was that an irregular motion in the tanks ahead? Were they turning their turrets to face this way? A sudden roar of static broke out, like the sound of a plane flying overhead, except that it was a howling that did not fade. Behind Cindella, her face illuminated by the lights of her control panel, Athena was smiling. When she saw Cindella had turned around, Athena gave a thumbs-up signal. Her plan had worked.

  At first the only sign that the enemy army was affected by the drowning out of all their broadcasts in a static was that the vehicles came to a halt, with their tank only about fifty meters from the portal. What now? Could they crawl around, out of turn, without making the units around them hostile? A plane flew past, then another.

  “It won’t take them long to find the source.” Athena leaned forward to whisper to Cindella. “Tell Jodocus to make a break for it.”

  Leaning over the plastic-like body of the dead soldier unit, Cindella passed the message on. Concentrating on the viewing box in front of him, Jodocus did not turn his head, but he did give a nod before clenching the driving handles firmly. They lurched forward and Cindella lost even her limited view of events outside as she rocked backward. At least they were moving. If it was a stressful moment for him, how much worse was it for those whose lives were in danger? Surely they must feel trapped, encased inside the dark metal walls of the tank, the smells of oil and sweaty bodies all about them. The sounds of yet more planes rushed overhead. Yet they pushed on and it seemed to Erik that as slow as their progress was, they must be very close to the portal.

  The proof that they had, in fact, made it through to the other side came in the form of a sudden silence. The roaring hiss from the radio was cut off in an instant. Everyone had their heads pressed up against a viewing box, and Erik set Cindella in a like manner.

  “Yes!” he whispered to himself with delight.

  Beside him, Athena was drumming on the floor of the tank with her feet. They looked across at one another and Athena held out her knuckles for Cindella to strike with a flick of her hand. They had made it! The tank had emerged into a world bathed in gentle sunlight. Ahead, under a blue sky, running into the distance between fields of swaying corn, was a long road, filled with slow-moving traffic. All of the vehicles on it were heading away from the portal toward the unknown horizon.

  Chapter 25

  EPIC

  “There’s a junction coming up. Shall we take it? It’s only a cart track or something,” Jodocus called back, loud enough to be heard over the squealing noise of the tank’s tracks.

  “Yes,” said several voices and a moment later the tank was off the tarmac road and running down a much inferior loose stone track, sending up clouds of dust as they raced along.

  Earlier, shouting back and forth through the congested interior of the tank, they had agreed to get away from the main road and ditch the vehicle before someone found their jamming equipment on the other side of the portal and figured out what had happened. If they simply turned aside and drove through the crops, however, that would look very suspicious, especially given the near-mathematical organization of the military and economic facilities of these worlds. Even leaving the road for a track might draw unwanted attention. But, thought Erik, it was better than being caught while surrounded by enemy tanks and vehicles full of soldiers.

  The tank was shaking more noticeably now, and along with the clouds of dust, this made it very difficult to see out. After about thirty minutes of this jolting progress, they came to a halt. Then the tank reversed a little before stopping again.

  Athena pressed up behind Cindella, so she could shout forward to Jodocus. “What’s happening?”

  “Killed the engine,” he called back.

  The silence that followed was a relief. No one spoke, but for the first time in hours they could have done so without having to raise their voices.

  “Where are we?” Athena wondered aloud, and without waiting for a reply, she unscrewed the lock on the central hatch and pushed it open. As soon as her slender frame had cleared the opening, Cindella scrambled out after her. The tank was parked in a wooden barn whose interior was illuminated by blocks of bright sunlight stretching from the gaps between the slats of the walls.

  Ghost was already through the back hatch and adjusting her satchel, readying herself for a march. “Right, let’s crack on.”

  “Where to?” asked Gunnar.

  “Let’s do the same as we did in that other world: follow the road, but from some way off. Hopefully, we’ll get to their headquarters by seeing where all those tanks and armored cars are going.”

  “Or we’ll arrive at another portal,” muttered Athena glumly. “What if there’s, like, a hundred more of them to go?”

  Having vaulted down from the tank, Jodocus was standing at the entrance to the barn. The elementalist turned toward Athena, sunlight picking out the rippling motion of the tattoos on his body. “My guess is that there are a lot fewer worlds than that. After Saga, the humans probably created a new world for each group of colonists to use as they journeyed through space. What do you know about the number of colonies?” He looked at Ghost. “Weren’t there five of them?”

  “Yes.”

  One of the great revelations that Erik and the people of New Earth more generally had experienced upon meeting with the people Saga was that they had recovered something of the lost history of the human species. And along with the despair of learning of the annihilation of Earth’s population by the RAL of Saga had come hope and curiosity at the news that several other colonizing expeditions had previously left the planet. How they lived, what manner of government and society they had, what level of technology—all this remained a complete mystery, a mystery that Erik hoped would be solved by encountering them in the course of this current journey. There was no chance of New Earth launching space rockets and of meeting them physically for a very long time.

  “Five expeditions and the original program on Earth makes six,” continued Jodocus. “So Saga is one; Epic—where Cindella is from—is two”—he was counting off on his fingers—“my world, Myth, three; that bombed-out city we stole the tank in, four; and here is five. Then there is just one to go. One more portal and then we are in the final world.”

  “Oh.” Athena thought about this, then picked up her bag. “I should have figured that out. We’re getting close then.”

  Traveling between fields of ripe wheat under a cloudless sky was rather pleasant, and there was something especially pleasing about the quality of the light, or the air, or the lithe motion of Cindella’s arms as they swung to and fro at the edges of his vision. Not that Erik could really relax and fully enjoy the scene. Instead he was alertly scanning the sky, worried about the dangers of being caught in such a relatively open environment by a scout plane. Then, too, there were the farmworkers who came into view from time to time. These units were almost certainly very limited NPCs, with strict routines from which even the appearance of a strangely dressed group of people would not shift them. But erring on the side of caution, whenever a tractor or group of these farmers came into view, the travelers altered their path
and turned aside.

  The landscape was extraordinary. It was hilly, so much so that some of the nearby peaks probably deserved to be called mountains. Yet where Erik would have expected the terrain to be rough, with boulders, thickets, and clusters of trees, it was surprisingly tidy. It was as if a god had taken a comb and dragged it down the hillsides, clearing the fields of all debris and allowing for farms to be erected, each placed exactly two miles apart, with the same farm buildings, the same rectangular fields around them, and almost certainly the same farmworkers. Rough tracks of the sort the tank had followed on leaving the tarmac road connected the farms to each other and to grain silos.

  A narrow space between the edges of the crops and the fences that divided the fields only allowed room for them to walk in single file, and they trudged on in this way for hours over the long dried ridges of ploughed earth; sometimes stopping to let Ghost levitate to get a view of the distant road, sometimes stopping for longer breaks at the junction of four fields, where there was a little more room to gather. They could, of course, have simply pressed down the stalks of wheat and gotten comfortable while they rested, but they decided against leaving any clues to their progress that might be visible from the air.

  As the sky ahead of them began to change in color, becoming a deep blue, the sun declining over Erik’s left shoulder, they found themselves walking up a series of rises. Each was steep enough that it seemed it must be the last, but every time they broached a crest, they discovered that instead of the land ahead descending, it had leveled off, only to rise again in the distance. After an hour of this ascent, Athena was panting loudly as she marched just ahead of Cindella. Behind them, the height they had already reached allowed Erik to view the vast extent of land under cultivation: an ocher chessboard with thousands of squares. Here, at last, they came to the end of the wheat fields, where the hill became so steep that it was impossible to continue walking normally. They weren’t exactly rock climbing, but it did help to use your hands to reach out to the stones ahead for balance as you stepped from one boulder to the next, always pushing onward. Cindella’s stamina bar was gradually declining, but Erik was conscious that he was not feeling the effects of the march in his real body. Not like poor Athena, who was stopping more and more often and constantly pulling her satchel around to different positions to relieve the strain of carrying it.