Chapter 117 – Jailbreak
Silence rings in my ears. The small, white room we’re hiding in feels too small, too featureless, too artificial. The boy, Hans, is frozen in the bubble only feet away from myself. His face is pinched in a faint, concerned frown, and his gaze stares straight through me.
I wish I knew what was going on out there. In this compartment, we’re blind and deaf to anything that might be happening outside. How close is the god? What are they doing? I tighten my grip around Ollie, who almost seems affixed to the space he’s occupying; the anti-gravity spell may make him float, but he’s still far more massive than myself. Like trying to push an asteroid in outer space.
I take a steadying breath, attempting to rein in my racing thoughts. Options. What are my options?
I have my fire magic, which I doubt will do much to a god. There’s my psionic spells, too. Emotional Radiance. I don’t like how close that edges toward mind-control, but perhaps it could be used to diffuse the situation—though I doubt anyone with System access, who will be notified when a mind-altering spell is cast on them, will find such tactics reassuring.
I double check the map of the Sanctum, but as far as I can tell, there are no doors in or out. Obviously Rinviu had to enter somehow, but that doesn’t help me.
We can’t flee. Fighting seems doubtful, given the amount of trouble Lorata’s champions had given us. Is hiding really all we can do?
Delegate. Mirzayael’s told me many times that I don’t need to handle everything myself—even Kanin had to remind me of that in the fight against Zeyaelid. Shirasil isn’t an option now—he’s made it abundantly clear he won’t risk his position being exposed, and even if he would, we can’t reach him from inside the Heavens.
But he’s not the only god I have on speed dial, is he?
I open the Contact interface and pull up Blair’s name. None of my messages have been able to reach her before, but she’d been in the Heavens while I was on Lusio; even if they weren’t two different dimensions, the Time Dilation spell itself would have made communication untenable. But we should be operating at the same speed, now.
I hesitate before I reach out to her. Will she be willing to defy the Heavens to come to our aid? She’s always seemed less certain about wanting to free the Travelers than Shirasil. She has a good heart. But will that be enough?
[Kanin: Make a break for it on my signal]
I jump at Kanin’s abrupt message appearing in my Interface.
[Fyre: What? Why? Kanin, what’s going on?]
[Kanin: They’re about to find us. But they don’t have to find you. Noli and I can provide enough of a distraction for you to escape. Good luck]
Escape? Escape where!
[Fyre: What? No. Hold on—let me figure something out.]
There’s no more time to weigh options. Blair will help, or she won’t; at the very least, it can’t hurt to try. If nothing else, she deserves to know what’s happened back on Lusio—and to Aquenno.
I open a chat interface with Blair and send a test message.
[Fyre: Can you receive this?]
I pause, waiting for the words to vanish and be replaced with “Message Failed to Deliver.” But my message persists. I hold my breath.
The world shifts around me, and I nearly stumble back into the wall of the cube. Only Ollie keeps me anchored in place. The floor beneath my feet sways like a ship on the sea. Wind magic. They must be looking for us.
And then, a response appears in my Interface.
[Blair: Fyre? Gods above. How are you sending this? What are you doing here?]
A second message follows up the first before I have a chance to reply.
[Blair: Have you been captured?]
I smile wryly to myself.
[Fyre: Not yet. We’re in the Sanctum. There’s a god here, Rinviu. We’re hiding, but I suspect we are about to be discovered. We could use your help.]
While I can’t exactly hear Blair spluttering, I can imagine it pretty well.
[Blair: What—I—is this Lisari’s doing? Hold on.]
Not that there’s much more we can do at the moment. I scratch between Ollie’s horns, and he closes his eyes with a small sigh. I’m not even sure if the gesture is to comfort him or myself. Rationally, I knew it was a bad idea to come here. I knew there was very little I would be able to do to help. But Dizzi had needed me, and then Kanin…
But if another child ends up hurt because of my choices, I’m not sure I could forgive myself.
Unbidden, my thoughts are drawn back toward my previous life.
The office would ask me to work weekends, and I would agree. A friend would ask me to help them move, and I couldn’t say no. An estranged cousin needed me to drive them across the country, and of course I couldn’t let them down. I was there to appease everyone—except the people who needed me most.
Is that what I’m doing now? Am I making the same mistakes all over again? I squeeze Ollie tighter to my chest.
A notification appears in my interface, but it’s not from Blair.
[Kanin: Wait. I think they passed us. Keep quiet.]
Ollie looks up at me. “THAT’S GOOD, RIGHT?”
“I think so,” I tell him, though I’m not sure myself. Blair’s doing? Luck? Or has the god passed Kanin because they’re heading toward myself and Ollie instead?
Seconds pass, and the still silence stretches. A faint breeze once more sends our container swaying, but nothing else transpires. We are left waiting for only a few minutes, but I count every second that ticks past. Hours back on Lusio.
[Kanin: They’re gone.]
I let out a breath.
[Fyre: Are you sure?]
[Kanin: Yes. I left some of my glass out to watch—they went through an opening in the wall, the same way they came in. We’re in the clear.]
[Ollie: YAY! DOES THAT MEAN WE CAN GO BACK TO SAVING EVERYONE?]
I would actually prefer to stay in hiding a few minutes longer to be safe, but Kanin replies first.
[Kanin: Heading your way.]
Then we might as well get going, too; we can’t afford to waste time in this place, especially if the god decides to come back later for a second look. I press my hand to a side of the cube and get Echo to open the wall. Ollie wriggles out of my grasp and jumps back out into the room, doing a summersault through the air, and despite the danger we’re still in, I can’t help but smile at his antics.
I reach back out to Blair as I follow him out.
[Fyre: Rinviu is gone. Do I have you to thank for that?]
“Let’s double-count the Travellers,” I tell Ollie as I follow him out. “Make sure we don’t miss any.”
“OKAY!”
My heart jumps when he goes racing ahead of me, but if I am to have any solace with bringing him here, it’s that his white scales provide him the perfect camouflage for our colorless surroundings.
[Blair: No, I didn’t do anything, but I am going to investigate. No alarm has been raised, but they must have detected something. You’re alright?]
I fly after Ollie, marking each cube on the Sanctum’s map interface, then closing the surface of each cube that he opens ahead of me. I’m glad the last time we were checking their contents I had the forethought to do the same, or there would have been signs of our visit. I reply to Blair as we quickly count the Travelers.
[Fyre: We’re fine. But a lot has happened. Lorata’s champions found the Fortress. They know about Kanin. Shirasil—]
[Blair: I knew he was involved.]
[Fyre: —helped us escape, but Aquenno was seriously injured before he arrived. Your champion should be in the Fortress now, but I don’t know what state he’s in.]
Silence stretches for an unusually long moment.
[Blair: I see. Thank you for informing me. It appears my position in the Heavens is soon to be compromised, then.]
Ollie and I finish our round and make it back to where we started—the block containing a dhampyr named Hans.
[Fyre: Will you be okay?]
[Blair: Uncertain. It depends on what Lorata’s champions know. I will investigate and get back to you. But you need to get out of here before you’re caught. How did you end up here in the first place?]
[Fyre: That might take some time to explain.]
[Blair: Understood. Then we will converse on it later.]
Kanin and Noli leap up to the block where Ollie and I are waiting. Noli is smiling like she’d just told a joke, and Kanin… well, it’s hard to say for someone without a face. But the way the shadows are swirling around his glass looks almost playful.
“You went easy on me,” Noli signs to Kanin with a laugh.
“I’d never!” he objects. “That would be condescending.”
Noli gives an exaggerated, teasing eye roll.
Something’s certainly changed, but after the close-call with the god, laughter and jokes were about the last thing I was expecting.
[Fyre: Everything alright?]
“Yep,” Kanin signs, a certain perk in his movements. “Never better. Now, where are these Travelers you guys found?”
I suppose I’ll have to ask more about what transpired later.
[Fyre: I’ll show you.]
Once more, I open the face of the containment cube, revealing the boy trapped in the bubble of light.
[Fyre: We’ve checked several of the containers. Some are empty, but all the ones with Travelers are like this. I can open the cubes, but I’m not sure how to open the force fields. They seem sturdy.]
Kanin hovers over the bubble, rapping the knuckles of a disembodied glass hand on the surface. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
I’m surprised but relieved to hear it. We don’t have time for the battery of experiments I was starting to think up.
[Fyre: You know how to open it? Or break it?]
[Kanin: Nope. No idea. But I think there’s a way Ink and I can get around it. Or through, I should say.]
“Anything I can do?” Noli asks.
“Keep an eye out for any more visitors,” Kanin signs to her. “And watch my body. I should still be here, mentally, but I’m going to be distracted.”
“Of course,” Noli signs, expression fierce and protective as her gaze roams over the rest of the room. “I’ll keep you safe.”
I lean closer to watch as Kanin presses a hand to the surface of the bubble. What does he have in mind?
I blink, and half of his void vanishes. In the same instant, it reappears inside of the bubble.
Like Hans, the void now seems to be subjected to a second Time Dilation spell. The black substance begins to spread and flatten itself out in slow motion, growing like a drop of dye dissolving in a glass of water.
A ripple passes through Kanin’s void and glass still outside the bubble.
“Are you okay?” Noli asks.
“Mostly,” he signs shortly. “It’s the time bubble inside of the barrier. My mind is moving at two different speeds at once.”
Noli makes a face. “I might not be a healer like Rezira, but I don’t think that’s good for you.”
Kanin signs something that Echo interprets as a gesture for dry humor. “Never would have thought.”
As the void slowly stretches around Hans, I begin to understand Kanin’s plan. He wants to teleport the Travelers out of the bubble, like he had with Mirzayael during their sparring match. It’s a great idea—though the time it’s taking to free just one Traveler has me concerned.
[Fyre: There are thirty-two other Travelers—at least in the Sanctum. It’s impossible to say if there are other rooms like this one, where more Travelers might be held.]
“We can go looking for more if we have time,” Kanin signs.
I grimace.
[Fyre: I’m not sure if time is something we have on our side.]
Some of Kanin’s loose glass floats into the air and then goes flying off in different directions throughout the room. “If I do this thirty-two more times, that’s at least thirty-two hours back in Lusio.”
Seems he’s realizing the problem, too.
[Fyre: Probably more. It’s been over two minutes now. Even ignoring the time it would take you to move between the cubes and ready yourself for another spell, that adds up to almost three days in real time. I doubt the pantheon will wait that long to respond.]
“Then we multitask,” he signs. “Do them all at once.”
I had been hoping that was an option, yet I also can’t help but wonder how he’ll manage that mentally.
[Fyre: Are you capable of that? Such coordination…]
“Ink helps with dividing my attention,” he assures me. “I can split our void thirty-two different ways and then try to free as many as I can simultaneously.”
If he thinks he can do it, then I’ll have to trust him.
[Fyre: Okay. Ollie and I will get a head start and start opening each of the blocks—]
[Ollie: ON IT!]
He zips off before I’ve even finished, pouncing on the nearest containment cube with unrestrained glee. He seems to be over his earlier trepidation over the god’s appearance already. Somehow, it seems everyone in this room is having a good time but me.
[Fyre: Hopefully that will allow you to reach them all faster.]
“Sounds…” Kanin trails off, and an instant later, Hans vanishes from inside the sphere.
The young man falls out a second volume of void Kanin had positioned over the platform we’d originally arrived on. Hans stumbles down to his hands and knees with a startled yelp, looking around wildly. “What was that? What’s going on? Where am I?”
Noli springs off our cube to join Hans on the central platform. He flinches at her arrival, but she crouches to his level and gestures for him to calm down, reaching out to give his hand a gentle pat. Kanin takes off after Ollie’s haphazard trail of opened cubes as I activate Jets to join Hans and Noli.
“It’s okay,” Noli is signing to him. “We’re here to help.”
He looks at her in uncomprehending bewilderment.
Some glass appears through Kanin’s void to join the rest of us on the platform; it’s carrying Kanin’s translator.
“Activate translation,” his translator says shortly.
Hans gapes at the floating, talking rock.
I get what Kanin is trying to convey, but I don’t think Hans is quite in the right headspace for blunt orders from a magical object. I also crouch at his side, keeping my voice low. “We need to be quiet. I’m going to send you a message through the System, okay?”
The boy looks up at me in awe, then does a double-take as he catches sight of my wings. “Are you an angel?”
I blink. Then laughter threatens to tumble from my mouth, and I have to stifle myself. Of all the things he could have said…
As silly as it sounds, his words light a warmth in my chest. Even if I am having doubts, even as I worry if coming here was the right call, his innocent, earnest expression convinces me I’m doing the right thing.
“I’m not an angel,” I tell him. “But I am here to help you.”
I send a message request to Hans through the Contact interface. The boy frowns, his gaze going unfocused, but a few seconds later his name appears in my list:
- Blair
- Hans
- Kanin
- L
- Ollie
- Sandro