And he tried not to think about how much more clearly he might hear the homesong if he shuttered the beacon. He tried to embrace his loneliness and decide he deserved the company of that inspiring melody.
He tried to concentrate on things other than the beckoning call. The crystal plain looked kind of like really clear ice. He could stare a long way beneath his feet. He wondered how far he had come. How many miles had he traveled? How many days had he run? It seemed he had gone farther than he had with Harvan and Winston, but it was hard to be sure. The duskday never changed.
At last the crystal plain ended, and Cole found himself running across a rolling prairie with occasional gigantic bushes. The call of the Other continued to beckon.
Would it be such a crime to shutter his beacon? Just for a little while?
He recalled Winston getting enthralled by the homesong before he had walked very far from the beacon. Shuttering the lantern might be the last thing he ever did. It might also let enemies pinpoint his location. He had to remember that the beacon was also concealing him. The call of the Other might sound sweet, and promise an end to his misery, but he couldn’t get lured in. Too many people were relying on him.
Ominous music sounded up ahead, but the beacon kept leading him forward. A distant wall came into view. As he drew closer, Cole realized the wall was the size of a mountain, stretching as far he could see to either side.
Directly before him, right where the beacon was leading him, Cole saw a gap in the mighty barrier.
Could that be the Pass of Visions?
It was the most probable candidate so far.
As Cole approached, the barrier looked more like a huge cliff rather than a wall, though it was almost perfectly vertical, and the top was strangely level. By the time Cole reached the gap, the menacing music of the cliff drowned out the homesong. Cole felt relieved, although the new music was not welcoming.
With the beacon urging him forward, Cole entered the pass at a full sprint. Steep cliffs rose at either side, separated by about thirty yards of hard-packed dirt. The floor of the pass sloped up at a gradual incline, winding enough that Cole couldn’t see how far it went.
A rumbling from up ahead caused Cole to slow down. Could it be a rockslide? He came to a stop when a large woman floated into view from farther up the pass, hovering toward him. She wore a white blouse, a long gray skirt, dark stockings, and flat black shoes. Her hair was up in a messy bun. Cole had seen this dressy schoolteacher before. She had mutilated his shaping power as she died.
It was Morgassa.
Cole’s reflexive instinct was to turn and run. Instead he stared. The beacon kept tugging him forward.
“Hello, Cole Randolph,” Morgassa said with a smile. “Fancy meeting you here in the realm of the dead. How about a rematch without all your little friends?”
Cole watched her glide in his direction, her feet a few inches above the ground. She was at least eight feet tall.
Could this really be her? It looked exactly like her. It sounded like her. He was in the afterlife. She could be here.
Still, if this was the Pass of Visions, it had to be a trick.
But what if it wasn’t?
“I see you brought your sword,” Morgassa said, her voice silky. “Are you going to leap around like a grasshopper again?” A huge sword appeared in her hands. “Or perhaps it doesn’t perform so well here in the realm of echoes. Perhaps you’ll have to face me in a fair fight.”
What were the chances this pass had one of the beings he most feared blocking the way? It had to be a vision customized to intimidate him.
Either that, or he was about to get killed.
Morgassa was scant seconds away from him. “I challenge you to a fair fight. Defend yourself or die.”
Cole reached for his sword but resisted drawing it. There was no way he could take out Morgassa singlehandedly. She was too powerful.
If she was a vision, and he attacked, she would be free to fight him. If she was real, and he attacked, he stood little chance of winning.
So his best bet was to not attack. He had to hope she was a vision.
Morgassa had almost reached him. She raised her sword to strike. She looked completely real. If he was wrong, he was about to get chopped in half.
Cole took his hand off the hilt of his sword.
Her blade remained upraised.
“Come on, coward,” Morgassa urged. “Be a man. Fight me.”
If she wanted, she could kill him. Instead, she was stalling.
Cole ran around her and continued along the pass.
“Don’t turn your back on me!” Morgassa shrieked.
“Haven’t you hurt me enough?” Cole cried out. “Go bother somebody else.”
Morgassa flew in front of him, suddenly clad in a full suit of white armor, embellished with gold accents. She grew larger.
Cole wasn’t worried anymore. If she was the real deal, she would have already hacked him into lunchmeat. He ran around her again.
There came more rumbling from up ahead, and Carnag stomped into view. The creature looked just how Cole remembered her, the enormous body composed of wreckage and cages.
Cole wasn’t intimidated. If Morgassa was a vision, so was Carnag. He kept running, dodging around the legs.
Carnag and Morgassa dropped out of sight behind him. Cole wondered if the test was over. He ran in silence for about a minute.
Then Stafford Pemberton, High King of the Outskirts, strode into view. Cole had met the High King in Junction. He looked exactly as Cole remembered.
“Cole, you lied to me,” Stafford said. “When you played errand boy in my chambers, you were working for my wife. You were hiding my daughter. You are guilty of treason.”
“You’re guilty of not being real,” Cole said, not slowing down.
“I’m plenty real, Cole,” the king said, producing a knife. His face reddened as he spoke. “Real enough to punish a traitor! Real enough to take my revenge!”
Cole knew Stafford had to be fake but disliked how authentic he seemed. The unstable look in his eyes. The spit flying from his lips.
Stafford began to cough uncontrollably. He staggered toward Cole, swinging his dagger haphazardly.
Cole raced around him, but Stafford stayed with him, running beside him. The king kept swinging his knife, but never close enough to actually make contact.
“You imagine I’m past my prime?” Stafford gasped, still coughing. “You fancy you can outrun me? You’re all going to pay. Wait until I get your friends Dalton and Jenna. Wait until I get Jace and Twitch. Hunter. Mira. They’ll suffer for what they did to me. You all will!”
Cole felt tempted to argue. But it was pointless. This was some vision. It would be like talking back to a movie screen.
Stafford coughed violently but kept running. “My daughters will feel my wrath. My wife too. You’ll see. I’ll make them suffer.”
“Enough,” spoke a voice from farther up the pass.
Cole had been watching Stafford, so he hadn’t seen the new person come into view. He stood in the middle of the pass, hands behind his back. They had only met briefly when Cole first touched the Founding Stone, but Cole would recognize him anywhere. Nazeem.
Standing straight, Nazeem casually waved an arm. Stafford burst into flames. Cole felt a rush of heat from the nearby fire. The High King fell to the ground screaming.
Cole ignored the spectacle.
“You can’t win, you know,” Nazeem said matter-of-factly.
Cole didn’t answer. He just kept running. He couldn’t wait until all this was behind him. Fake or not, it was traumatizing.
“You think I’m not real,” Nazeem said as Cole neared him. “But what if I’m the one who controls the Pass of Visions? What if I have controlled this place for years, from my prison in the Fallen Temple, like how Trillian exerts influence over the Red Road.”
Cole offered no reply. He kept running. Nazeem was getting close.
“What if I’m toying with you
? What if this is really me?” He got down on his knees. “Torivors like sport, Cole. We enjoy contests.” He pulled open his shirt, displaying his bare chest. “What if I give you a free shot with that sword? What if this is the one such offer I’m ever going to make? What if I find it amusing that you’ll pass me by when you had your one chance to strike me down?”
“You’re lying,” Cole said. After the words left his mouth, he was mad at himself for responding.
“Torivors can’t lie,” Nazeem said. “I swear this is the real me. And I promise I will not defend myself. It’s inexpressibly entertaining that you could end this right now, save all the people you love. I’ll let you. I give my word. But you won’t. You’ll run right by me.”
“Yep,” Cole said as he ran past him. “Torivors can’t lie. But you’re not really a torivor. You’re just another vision.”
“Think what you like,” Nazeem said from behind him. “You are running away from the best chance you’ll ever have to win this war.”
Cole didn’t reply. There was no point.
The pass now sloped down instead of up. Cole hoped that meant he had crossed the halfway point.
As he came around a bend, Cole heard a voice weakly call his name.
Turning, Cole saw Winston crawling along the ground, his clothes tattered. “I can’t believe I found you,” Winston said with a beleaguered smile. “I was trying to catch up. It’s not fair for you to face all this alone.”
Cole slowed. “This is so mean,” he murmured. Winston looked and sounded so real.
“I’m out of strength, Cole,” Winston said. “Can you bring the beacon closer? I’m so tired. I feel like I can’t go on much longer. The homesong has a hold on me. I feel like I’m slipping. I only made it this far out of devotion.”
Cole stopped. He knew he shouldn’t, but it was nice to see Winston, even if it was fake. “You’re dead, Winston. You already went to the Other. I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Winston looked a little panicked. “Cole, no! I started to go. It almost had me. But I came back. The shapecrafters had left me for dead, so I followed you, and I finally found you, but I’m so tired now. Could you help me up?” He extended a hand. “I want to come with you. You shouldn’t have to shoulder this burden alone. I want to help.”
“The shapecrafters already took your dead echo,” Cole said.
“No, it’s him Cole,” a voice said from behind him.
Cole turned to find Harvan standing there.
“We gave the shapecrafters the slip,” Harvan said. “We followed you. But Winston is really tired, and I don’t have the strength to help him anymore. Could you lend him a hand?”
“This is sadistic,” Cole muttered, and started running again.
“Come back!” Winston called.
“Let him go,” Harvan said. “He abandoned us once. Of course he’s leaving us again. That kid only cares about himself.”
“Nazeem is back at the top of the pass,” Cole called over his shoulder. “He’s offering free chances to stab him. You guys should take him up on the offer.”
“We’ll do that!” Harvan called. “Save yourself, Cole. It’s what you’re best at.”
Cole kept running. How much longer was this pass going to last?
Around the next bend, Cole found his dad, mom, and sister all tied to chairs and gagged. They mumbled at him urgently, but he couldn’t understand them.
It was very tempting to stop and look. It had been so long since he had seen them. He knew no good would come of it, but it was hard to resist.
They groaned and grunted more urgently as Cole ran by. Was the trick to make him touch them by taking off the gags?
“I may be gullible,” Cole murmured, “but even I have limits.”
After he dashed by them, his dad called out in a clear voice, “Son! Please help us! We don’t know how we got here!”
“How’d you get the gag off, Dad?” Cole yelled over his shoulder.
“I shook my head and it fell free,” his father replied. “Please, Cole!”
“I miss you guys,” Cole called, hardly able to get the words out because of the lump in his throat. Even though it was a trick. Even though they were obviously fake.
Coming around another bend, Cole could see ahead to where the pass ended. And a body lay off to the side, not far from the end of the pass. As he came closer, he saw that it was Destiny.
Of course it was. Destiny Pemberton, sprawled out in this pass full of weird visions.
She didn’t move.
Cole couldn’t resist. He slowed down to take a closer look.
Tessa was breathing. But her eyes stayed closed.
Cole stopped. “I’m not going to shake you awake,” he told her.
She made no reply.
Cole suppressed a laugh. What if this really was her? Wouldn’t it be a perfect hiding place? Everybody assuming she was a vision?
Still, no way was it really her.
He started running again.
“Help me,” her voice said weakly.
“Now you wake up?” Cole called over his shoulder.
“I need a hero,” she said.
“You need acting lessons,” Cole replied. “You were a lot more convincing when you were unconscious.”
“Please stop saying mean things,” Destiny said. Desperation crept into her voice. “Come back! Help me! I’m scared!”
Cole gave no reply. Instead, he continued out of the pass.
CHAPTER
29
WARDEN
Short grass and sporadic bushes awaited at the far side of the cliffs. As he sprinted across the springy turf, Cole tried to shake off the memories of Morgassa’s fingernails digging into his sides as she mangled his shaping power. He tried not to dwell on how much more powerful and dangerous Nazeem would be than his underlings and their creations. He did his best to push aside his guilt over leaving Winston and Harvan behind, and for leading Mira into a trap. He pretended with all his might not to miss his home and family.
Everything in the Pass of Visions had been fake. And everything had forced him to confront real fears and worries and pain.
Cole couldn’t help feeling raw. He kept running. His echo body still functioned like normal. But inside he was wounded.
As Cole advanced, off to one side he noticed a wide channel. A narrow channel appeared on the other side. The two slipstreams flowed toward each other, apparently on a course to converge. The Weaver’s Beacon seemed to be tugging him toward the place where the channels joined. Cole figured that must be where they had built the bridge.
The music of the cliffs receded behind him, and Cole began to hear the homesong again, along with the whistling music of the slipstreams. Directly ahead a grove came into view, graceful trees with silver bark and crimson leaves. Clover carpeted the ground instead of grass. The grove seemed to mark the place where the slipstreams converged.
When Cole entered the grove, all outside music stopped, replaced by low, peaceful strains. It surprised Cole that such a small grove with such gentle music could overpower all other sounds. As he proceeded among the trees, he still couldn’t see or hear a bridge.
But he did encounter a house—a simple structure made of mud bricks with flowers growing on the roof. Two benches sat out in front. A man sat on one of the benches. He stood as Cole approached.
Cole recognized him.
“Dandalus?” Cole asked.
“Yes, my boy,” Dandalus said. “Have we met?”
“I touched the Founding Stone,” Cole said. “I spoke to the imprint you left there.”
“Perhaps you did,” Dandalus said, sitting down again. “What brings you so far into the fringe? It’s much more humane to just leap into a channel.”
“Sometimes that doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Cole said. The beacon was pointing straight at Dandalus. “I’m looking for the Warden of the Light.”
“You have quite a light of your own,” Dandalus said. “Did you rob the G
rand Shaper?”
“She gave it to me,” Cole said. “Then She Who Stands at the Summit sent me to you.”
“You think I’m the Warden of the Light?” Dandalus asked.
Cole started walking sideways. The lantern kept shifting to point right at Dandalus. “The Weaver’s Beacon seems to think so.”
“If we can’t trust a stranger’s lantern, what can we trust?” Dandalus asked, a sparkle in his eye.
“Can you read my mind?” Cole asked. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“I’ve gathered the basics,” Dandalus said. “I’m not as quick at raiding memories as our friend on the mountaintop. It would speed this up and make it simpler if you give me permission to know what you know.”
“Sure,” Cole said.
Dandalus stared at him for a long moment, then gave a nod. “Thank you. I think we can keep the test straightforward. She already tested you, and the Pass of Visions was wrenching.”
“Yeah,” Cole said, barely keeping his voice steady.
“Without knowing the secret of the pass, it’s almost impossible to make it through. I know of nobody who has done it. Even knowing how to survive it, many fail. That’s part of the reason I chose this spot as my sanctuary.”
“Can you only get here through the pass?” Cole asked.
“The two channels run at either side of the towering cliffs,” Dandalus explained. “They have no bridges between here and there. I’m protected by a triangle—two slipstreams and a wall of rock with a single way through.”
“I’ll have to go back through the pass to get out?” Cole asked.
“Unless you sprout wings, it’s the only way,” Dandalus said. “But you survived it once, so I expect you can do it again. Now for my test. Cole, I can send you home. Not an illusion. Not temporarily. I framed the Outskirts. I know how it all works. And I can bend the rules to send you back to your house in Mesa, Arizona. Say yes, and I’ll do it. Say no, and we can discuss other matters.”
“Wait,” Cole said. “Can you send me anywhere?”
“I can send you back Outside,” Dandalus said. “I can’t send you elsewhere in the echolands or the Outskirts.”
“Isn’t Arizona farther?” Cole asked.