“You saved my life,” he said. He nodded to where the dead plant beast lay in the corner of the room. Shreds of leaf and wood were still drifting slowly down to the floor from where Mariel had ripped the thing apart.
Mariel looked down at him and he saw again the care and tenderness in her eyes—and felt it again too. “We can’t let you die quite yet, Rick,” she said gently. “After all, you’re the only one who can free us from this place.” She added, “Though, until you do, you might want to hold on to that sword I gave you.”
With that, Favian flashed to his side. He held out his two shimmering hands and the silver sword seemed to float an inch or so above them.
Rick took hold of the sword’s hilt—the image of Mariel—and let out a breath as the force of her spirit surged through him again.
The only one who can free us . . ., he thought guiltily.
If she only knew the truth. She still thought she was the avatar of a human being. How could he ever tell her?
He sheathed the sword. He looked at his friends. He could see on both their faces the strain and lines of effort and rapid, unnatural aging that were already beginning to show again. Stuck here in the Realm, they could not recharge their energies. They were constantly fading and weakening, sinking inevitably toward the Realm’s horrible living death. A few times, Rick’s dad had programmed some reinforcement energy into Rick’s avatar so he could revive them. But there’d been no time for that on this immersion.
Well, that didn’t matter, Rick thought. In a few hours, they would be either out of here for good . . . or dead. Rick and Favian would be out of here, anyway . . .
He felt the surge of guilt again, but he forced it out of his mind.
“What’s wrong, Rick?” Mariel asked him. She sensed his trouble.
He wanted to tell her the truth, but he felt the pressure of the passing seconds. With each tick of the clock, the Battle Station was charging. He had to get going. He said, “RL’s in danger. Kurodar has taken control of a weapon. He can use it to set our entire country on fire.”
Mariel inclined her head in a single nod. “I knew there was something going on. He’s been moving to protect the Golden City with all his strength.”
“What do you mean? Like, how?” said Rick.
“There’s something happening in the center of the place, the interface,” Mariel said. “I can’t see what it is. There’s a protective cloud. But there are flashes that light the interior. I’ve caught glimpses of what’s in there . . . and what I’ve seen isn’t good. There’s something on the other side of the fog. Something big. Another security bot Kurodar’s created to protect the place. But this one’s different from the others somehow. It seems directly connected to Kurodar himself, a living outgrowth of his mind. What I mean is: it seems not only to be a security bot, it seems to be able to create other security bots out of itself, as if it were an extension of Kurodar’s imagination.” She looked down at him with her soft gaze. “I’m not sure even you can fight him, Rick.”
Rick smiled a little. Even you. He was touched by her faith in him. Touched—and, again, guilty, because he knew he could not be the hero she’d been waiting for, the one who would save her. No one could do that.
Mariel seemed to read his mixed emotions. He felt her gentle, understanding look cut right through him. How could a woman who was so . . . so womanly . . . just be some kind of black box full of numbers?
“But if anyone can defeat this thing, I know it’s you,” she told him.
“Mariel . . .,” he blurted out. He had to tell her. It couldn’t wait. He had to tell her the truth right now.
But she lifted a silvery hand to silence him. “We can’t waste time talking now, Rick. You know I’ll help you any way I can. Let me begin with this . . .”
It seemed then that Mariel wavered before his eyes, her silver form cascading downward like a sheet of water. In the next moment, the strange warmth of her seemed to pour over him, head to toe. When Rick looked again, she was still hovering in the air above him, but she had grown paler, weaker, older. She had given him some of her energy, that precious life she couldn’t spare. He looked down at himself then and saw . . .
She had cast him in a suit of armor again, but it was not like the suit she had given him before, not the white knight’s suit she had given him when he had invaded Kurodar’s fortress. This was—well, it was a whole lot cooler, almost like something out of a Marvel Comics movie. The silver suit covered him like a second skin made out of metal. It clung to him so perfectly, so lightly, he could barely feel it was there. And yet it gleamed and shifted like Mariel gleamed and shifted. And he could somehow sense her strength all around him and the protection it gave him.
“It feels . . . weird,” he said. “It feels like it’s part of me.”
“It is part of you. It’s connected to your spirit. It is your spirit in a way, the outer manifestation of it. Your faith wasn’t strong enough to carry it before, but it is now. I can feel it.”
For another moment, Rick looked down at the silver suit with a kind of awe. Then he raised his eyes to her and nodded. “Yes,” was all he said. “It is.”
“You remember I taught you how to change the reality of the Realm with the power of your spirit . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, definitely,” said Rick. With enough focus, he could change the shape of himself. He could flash from place to place like Favian . . .
“This armor will increase that power,” she said. “It will respond to your thoughts and act swiftly. It won’t make you invulnerable. Everyone is vulnerable to injury and death. But as long as your faith stays strong, it will give you more power than you ever knew you had.”
Once more, as he looked up at her, at the majesty of her face, he yearned to tell her the whole truth about what was going to happen, about who she was, about how he couldn’t rescue her from this place . . .
“Mariel . . .”
But again, she silenced him, raising a liquid hand. “Go. Quickly.” It was always like this between them. He had never had a quiet moment to talk to her, to get to know her. “You have to reach the interface,” she said.
Rick hesitated, but there was nothing he could say. “Where is it? How far? Is it in the Golden City?”
Mariel nodded, but she said, “It’s in the City of the Dead.” And then she added: “Follow the mist.”
30. A TRAITOR’S LEGACY
ALONE—ALL ALONE—in his office, Commander Mars watched the weapon on the screen. The Battle Station rolled against the backdrop of the stars, its energy panels turned toward the sun, its cannon turned toward earth. In a corner of the screen, the power meter filled slowly with green light. It was already nearly half full.
Mars sat in his high-backed leather swivel chair, surrounded by his shelves of books, his Persian rug, the pictures on his wall. His underground room had been made up to look like a study in a comfortable home somewhere.
And Mars looked like a man in his study, thinking. He sat with one elbow propped on the chair arm, his right hand held up to his face. His chin was propped on his thumb, his index finger raised alongside his forehead. He gazed at the animation on the screen and a small, joyless smile played at one corner of his mouth.
Like a video game, he was thinking. The whole thing is like one big video game.
It really did seem like that, down here, far away from people, far away from the cities and farms and forests and fields that would burn to cinders if that weapon went off. A video game . . . The Battle Station on the screen . . . the boy, Dial, in the Realm . . . the Boars and Harpies and gigantic Cobras that had invaded the MindWar compound, nearly destroying his guard . . . It was all like a video game, as if they were all living inside the mad imagination of a teenager with a controller.
It was madness. Madness. But it was nowhere near as mad as what had happened to him. Nothing could be any crazier than that.
Mars’s shoulders l
ifted and fell on a sigh. His belly felt hollow—not as if he were hungry, but as if his insides had been scooped out with a spoon, leaving him soulless, empty. He had not always felt like that. Once he had felt he had a solid core, a core of honor, of patriotism, of commitment and courage. Now all that was gone. How had it happened? How had he become a traitor?
Step-by-step, he thought.
It was true. He really had been a patriot once. He really had had a sense of honor. He had served his country in the Navy, in the intelligence service, and here, in the MindWar Project. He had always put the nation first, the mission first. Everything in his life came second to the job that had to be done. How had he gone from being that man to being what he was?
He’d been blackmailed, he told himself. He’d been tricked. He’d succumbed to fear . . .
That’s what he told himself. But one word kept coming into his mind, ringing in his mind like a persistent bell.
Pride.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Wasn’t that what the Bible said? He would have to ask the Traveler, Mars thought with self-lacerating irony. The Traveler knew his Bible, that was for sure. Mars hadn’t read it since he was a boy.
But yes, he knew about pride, all right. He knew it was pride that had gotten him here. He had set out to protect the people of his country from foreign invaders, but soon he had found he was protecting them from themselves, from what he thought were their own foolish ideas. Without realizing it, he had come to feel superior to the very public he served. He had come to feel he was strong and wise and they were weak and stupid and needed him to watch over them. Soon, he wasn’t serving his country at all anymore. Not really. He was serving his sense of himself, his sense of his own mighty strength and superiority. And that sense of superiority grew until he thought no one could question him, no one could second-guess him. He was so sure of himself, he didn’t need to discuss his plans with colleagues or consult with his superiors or get permission from the elected officials in government who were his bosses or from anyone at all. That was why, when he conceived his idea to trap Moros and Axis, it had been easy for Moros to turn the trap around and spring it on him. They had smelled his pride like dogs smell food and they had come rushing to devour him.
And now, by his own fault, the country he had sworn to protect, the country he still loved, was about to be hit by a weapon more powerful than any ever known to man.
Unless a teenage boy could stop it by playing a deadly video game better than his opponents.
Madness.
The green light in the power meter at the bottom of the screen rose another notch. Mars swallowed something bitter.
There was a light tap at the door.
“Come in,” he muttered.
The door to his office opened and Miss Ferris stepped in.
Mars swiveled slightly in his chair so he could see her. He could also see the guards who were standing in the hall—who had been standing in the hall for an hour now, making sure he did not escape. “I thought you were with the others.”
“I was,” she said. “I was monitoring Rick in the portal room.”
He nodded. “But you left to find me. It must be something important.”
There was a pause as Miss Ferris stood there in the doorway looking at him.
“I wanted to tell you they’re here,” she said. Her voice, as usual, held no emotion.
But Mars knew whom she meant: the officers had arrived to arrest him. They would take him into custody. After that, a public trial, disgrace, prison . . . maybe even execution. He would deserve execution if Kurodar managed to get the Battle Station charged up. Millions would die. Whole states would be in flames. And it would all be his fault . . . He would deserve whatever punishment they gave him.
“Do you want me to tell them to come for you or . . .?” Miss Ferris’s voice trailed off, leaving the sentence half finished.
Mars quietly shook his head. “I’ll come up.”
He swiveled around and stood. He took one final glance around his comfortable room. He would not have such comfortable quarters again, not ever. He would never have his freedom again.
Finally, he turned to look down at Miss Ferris. She met his gaze steadily, her face expressionless. As usual.
“How’s it going in there?” he asked her.
“It worked,” she said. “Rick is in the Golden City. If he can reach the interface . . . we have a chance.”
He nodded. “Well . . . I hope they succeed.”
“We all hope so,” she said—very coldly. As usual.
Mars straightened his stance, trying to ready himself for what was coming. There was nothing else to say. It was time for him to go upstairs and turn himself in.
He walked to the door. Miss Ferris’s eyes followed him closely as he moved. She never looked away. Her gaze was so intense, he finally stopped right at the threshold of the room and faced her. He knew what she was thinking. Of course he did. But he asked her anyway, “What is it, Miss Ferris? Is there something you want?”
There was a moment of silence as Miss Ferris continued to stare at him blankly. Then, in that same robotic voice, she said, “I sent a young Marine to his death in the Realm on your orders.”
He nodded. He felt sorry for her. He knew how much she had felt that mistake, despite the way she locked up her emotions. “Try not to blame yourself,” he said quietly. “The mission was right. The mistake was mine.”
“But it was you I was following. I was ready to do whatever you said. I . . . I worshipped the ground you walked on.”
He turned away. He could no longer meet her eyes. “I worshipped the ground I walked on too,” he said. “I guess we both made the same mistake.”
He stepped out of the room.
“But if I don’t follow my commanding officer . . .,” Miss Ferris said behind him, and a note almost of desperation entered her voice. “If I don’t follow my superior, who can I follow?”
Mars didn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer. He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t even help himself.
Two soldiers with automatic rifles were waiting for him in the hall. They moved to stand on either side of him.
Then the three of them marched off together, leaving Miss Ferris standing alone.
31. MYST
FOLLOW THE MIST.
That was what Mariel had told him—then the shape of her had dissolved before his eyes and spilled down into the basin, scattering into dribs and droplets, disappearing in between the crockery to flow away, out of sight. Rick did not know when he would see her again . . . if he would see her again . . . if he would live to see her again . . .
He looked at Favian. Favian floated beside him, shimmering, his mouth open, his eyes wide. He looked almost paralyzed with fear. Rick tried to give him a smile of encouragement, but the best he could do was to tilt his head toward the dining hall’s far door.
“Guess we better get to it,” he said.
He moved to the door, his footsteps heavy on the dining hall floor. The silver armor that coated his body flowed with him. Physically he could feel it only as a sort of thin rippling presence around him. But he felt the power of it, the strength. He wondered what cool things he could get the armor to do.
Favian flashed after him. His feet never touched the floor and so his movement didn’t make a sound. Rick reached the door and drew it open.
Follow the mist.
Rick looked out and understood.
Rick and Favian stood side by side, looking up a long corridor. It rose steadily out of shadow into light. At the top of the rising hall there was an open doorway. After being in the dark so long, Rick found the yellow light washing in through the doorway almost blinding. It made him squint.
Just at the place where the light spilled into the hall, Rick could detect the first drifting tendrils of mist.
“I gue
ss that’s the mist we’re supposed to follow,” he said to Favian.
“I guess,” Favian said weakly. “Kind of spooky-looking.”
Rick didn’t answer. He began moving up the passageway. After a moment, Favian flickered at his side.
As the light of the doorway grew closer, Rick felt himself getting tighter inside, more nervous. What was this monster Mariel had seen guarding the interface? Could he fight it? Could he win?
Baba Yaga’s words haunted him: You must go into the belly of the beast. You must face the horror he cannot face.
He still didn’t know exactly what those words meant. Something about those horrific images he had seen in the witch’s table. But what? He felt he was going to find out, and soon.
He and Favian reached the end of the corridor. They hesitated at the threshold of the doorway. The mist blew in and curled and rose around their feet. Rick looked at the anxious Favian and Favian anxiously looked at Rick.
“Well, buddy, I guess this is it,” Rick said. “This will decide it one way or the other.”
Favian nodded very slightly, very slowly. “I guess.” He peered at Rick anxiously. “And your dad will really build me a portal out of here?” he said.
Rick nodded. “That’s what he told me.”
“And you trust him, right? I mean, he’s not the kind of guy who would lie or anything, is he?”
“No, he’s not,” said Rick with certainty—certainty he hadn’t felt for quite some time. “He’s a good man, a man you can trust.” He felt a surge of warmth as he said it. He was lucky, he thought, to have a father he could say that about.
Favian nodded. “Okay. Okay. Okay,” he repeated nervously.
Rick forced himself to smile. “Come on, you blue dipstick,” he said. “Let’s go fight the bad guys.”
And they stepped through the door.
32. CITY OF FOG
MOLLY STOOD OVER Rick’s sleeping body, holding his hand. Miss Ferris had returned to the makeshift portal room and was standing beside her, her expression blank, her eyes gazing at nothing. On the monitors on the wall, the Battle Station turned in space. Its power meter, Molly saw, was now more than halfway full. Ninety minutes left, she thought. If that.