The door opened into a narrow corridor leading into the passage between worlds. That corridor was short, and beyond that, the passage expanded into a space far larger than the entire house on the opposite side. The ceiling towered eighty feet overhead, white plaster, reinforced with steel columns in the center of the passage, as well as struts of the same metal spaced along the walls. Massive shuttered windows, mostly covered in dark metallic shades, formed the majority of both sides of the passage.
Dim silver light filtered in through slivers of openings in the window shades. Light from between realms could have a dull, sickly feel to it when filtered improperly, but Passage 91 didn’t have that issue. The light could have been from Earth’s moon. Small lamps hung between the middle columns, casting their glow over the broad roadways on either side of the central supports. The place looked mostly deserted, for the moment. That would do.
Saul stood beside Olivia as she looked up at the ceiling, and then down the length of the passage. She blinked and turned to him. “It’s huge. How many people use this?”
“Almost everyone who wants to go between realms.” Saul looked down at the dusty roads before them. On closer inspection there were spider and cobwebs forming in most of the corners. “This particular stretch of passage doesn’t see many visitors.”
Olivia followed his gaze to the webs and the dust. He turned to the stable on one side. Half of him had feared the passage would be staffed on this side of the door, but the stable was most likely derelict. Two empty stalls were visible. He craned his neck to see if there were any other places people might be found in the passage.
“It looks abandoned,” said Olivia.
“Not many people want to come to Earth,” said Saul.
“But you did.”
“Yeah, a long time ago.”
“How long ago? How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
She frowned at him. “Me too. I just sort of assumed you were older. How long do people from Hidria live?”
“Same as you. We’re human.”
“Huh.” Olivia peered down the length of one shadowy passage road. “Guess we’re walking this one.”
“This is a side passage. It shouldn’t be too far. When we get to the main passage, we should be able to find a ride the rest of the way.”
“How far is not too far?” Olivia asked.
“Getting tired?”
She gave him a dark look. “Never mind.”
“It shouldn’t take us more than an hour to get there.”
Olivia pulled a cell phone from her coat pocket. She checked the time. “It’s almost 2:30.”
“Then we better get going. Luther got to Mortressa two hours ago. Who knows how long he’ll stay there.”
They started walking.
* * *
By the time they reached the place where the smaller side passage joined the main passage leading to Mortressa, Saul noticed Olivia’s tiredness. She was tough for an Earth-born and kept trouping forward without complaint. She never yawned, but her drooping eyelids and gradually slowing steps gave her away. Saul would have been tired too, but he had reserves of the energy makers stored in their taphs to draw upon.
The power that welled up from within each maker was chiefly used to bring art-children to life, but it could also act as a resource to sustain consciousness, and fight fatigue, even when human physicality demanded rest. Saul knew to be grateful he had not been born on Earth. Mentally, he thanked his otherwise irksome parents for it one more time.
He stopped by the end of the side passage and Olivia leaned against the wall beside him. She blinked and looked out at the even broader, and more brightly lit hall. It looked similar to the side passage, but in much better repair despite seeing greater use. A sunken train track ran along each side of the row of central columns. Saul guessed the tracks to be a loop, where only one train used them. For the moment, the tracks were silent. The trains were used for larger cargo. Most makers preferred to ride an art-child.
The roads on either side of the passage were mostly empty, but the place had been swept recently. There were no cobwebs or signs of spiders using the corners for their homes.
The steely shades that covered the windows were drawn tightly here, allowing in no external light.
A bobbing yellow beacon toward the roof of the passage approached them from the direction of Hidria. Saul recognized that light, a guardian’s lantern. Patrols carried such devices by night.
“Olivia,” he said. “Don’t move.” He sank back against the wall of the side passage, beside her. His jacket brushed her side. He inched closer to her to hide from the patrol in the main passage. Her taphic presence was mundane, but her scent was good.
Saul eased back and shook himself. He didn’t want to fight a team of guardians who would definitely have art-children with them, not evenly anyway. “Stay here for a second.”
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Olivia frowned at him. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a patrol with a wing boat in the passage ahead of us. I’m going to see how many of them there are.”
Olivia nodded, obviously weary.
Saul nudged Nat, who lay curled around his neck. “Nat, you hear that?”
“I did.”
“Then get ready to take me for a hop. Somewhere they won’t see me.”
“Of course, master.”
Nat slipped back to his old-fashioned way of speaking when tired, and he didn’t have a maker taph to mine for energy, just like Olivia. Saul peered around the corner into the passage. The sound of beating wings from the flying patrol boat told him they were getting closer.
Saul had never tried to jump a patrol of guardians before, but with no train in sight, and Olivia and Nat already tired he needed some way to get to Mortressa quickly. Even maker stamina was not inexhaustible. He ducked back and took off his pack. He unzipped the bag and removed the carved wooden surge bowl from it.
The bowl appeared empty and mundane, but Saul knew better. Devices like this did not require grand appearances or even raw power of the sort he could sense. This surge bowl had been carved by his grandfather and given to him as a gift when he was still an aspiring worldmaker. Saul took a deep breath and set down his backpack. He picked up his sword and checked his belt loop to make sure the two oven rods were still secured there.
“Nat,” he said. “Hop.”
“Yes, master.”
Nat dragged Saul from the dark side of the wall and into the place between shadows. He floated in the void for a second, then two. Saul opened his eyes, feet on the pavement of the boulevard just over the train tracks, hidden behind a support pillar.
He looked up at the shadow of the approaching wing boat. The boat looked to be some twenty-five feet long, with a wingspan of over twice that. Gray feathers covered the huge wings, but there were also scales visible along the support structure of each limb. The boat had no face, but Saul knew it was an art-child. Lantern light blinked at the boat’s bow.
“Nat, can you take me to that boat?”
“They have only one lantern, master. Give me some credit.”
Saul tensed, then relaxed. He took a deep breath. “Do it.”
They hopped, complete with the sickening sensation of the ground being gone. Saul felt the roll of the deck beneath his feet and the low mutter of the patrol group’s voices. Two speakers. Two men. Just two. Guardians were usually well trained, but Saul had been an aspiring worldmaker. His grip on his sword’s sheathe locked tight. Otherwise completely still, he opened his eyes.
He stood near the small cabin door near the rear of the wing boat. The doorknob pressed into the small of his back. Nat had cut it close. Saul suppressed the urge to glance behind him to make sure the rounded pressure on his back was really a doorknob and kept his eyes forward.
One guardian sat at the bow beside the great lantern, scanning the floor of the passage below. The other sat just behind the first, sword in hand with a rag to polish it. The blade reflected yellow lantern light. Both the men were big, and looked strong to Saul’s limited sight, but neither saw him.
Saul drew his sword with its characteristic rasp. At the same time, he channeled a bit of his maker spark into the surge bowl. Presence began to build within the bowl. The two guardians noticed him and his own presence just a second or two after he arrived on the barge. They both whirled. The one at the lantern drew his sword.
“Who’s there?” said the guardian at the lantern.
Saul said nothing but released the charge built in the surge bowl. A jolt of lightning blasted from the bowl, casting the whole boat in a flickering blue light. Saul aimed the bowl at the closer guardian. The lightning crackled into the man’s chest. He screamed in pain and collapsed to the deck. The sword fell from his grasp.
The other guardian swore under his breath and then charged at Saul. Saul threw down the sheath of his sword and dropped the surge bowl to the wooden deck of the boat. His sword met the guardian’s blade. Both of them rocked with the impact. Saul’s closed fist crashed into the man’s cheek. The man reeled back.
Saul followed up with a slash at the man’s sword arm. The guardian blocked the blow, cannily. “You are in violation of maker law,” the man growled. “Surrender now, and you may be spared the death sentence.”
Feint and parry. Thrust and counter. The fought back and forth along the ship. The guardian fought well, and Saul felt himself tiring. Quickening that blast from the surge bowl with his spark might have been the wrong idea. The only weakness of the surge bowl was speed, otherwise.
The guardian forced Saul back toward the cabin door.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Saul.
“Tell that to the man you just blasted with lightning.”
“Fine. I just don’t want to kill you.” Saul’s next stroke battered the guardian’s blade low. The opening was enough that if Saul wanted he could have burnt the man’s face with an oven rod. “You’re lucky.” His fist connected with the guardian’s cheek and knocked him back a step.
The guardian grunted and nearly tripped over his unconscious comrade. He yelled a word Saul did not recognize, and probably couldn’t pronounce even if he heard it more clearly. A hawk-like cry, high-pitched, piercing, and somehow metallic rang out from behind Saul. An art-child.
Saul ducked low, and the hawk child flew past his shoulder, then circled the guardian in front of him. Talons glinted the color of steel in the lantern light. A metal bird made a strong warrior for such a small child. Saul grimaced at the guardian. His shoe touched the upright surge bowl at his feet. The bowl wobbled, but did not spill its invisible payload.
He sensed a half-full charge built in the bowl.
“You can just give me your boat now,” Saul said. “And I won’t have to hurt you.”
The guardian roared in anger. Rage turned his bruised face red. He launched himself at Saul, bird right behind him. Saul dropped to a crouch beside the surge bowl. He scooped up the device and aimed it away from himself as quickly as he could.
A flash of lightning discharged, and chained from the charging guardian to the metal bird at his side. A fork crackled onto Saul’s sword. His teeth locked together as the charge ran through his body. The guardian before him fell to his knees. The bird careened past Saul and over the side of the boat.
He heard it hit the pavement below with a scrape and crash. The electrical light faded. Thunder boomed in the passage.
Saul shuddered and tried to stand up, despite the painful protests of his sword arm. He stalked over to the guardian who sat on his knees. The man glared at him, but couldn’t muster the strength to move. Saul pushed him over with the sole of his shoe. He went to he bow of the boat and with his left hand took the wheel at the helm, and old-fashioned control to be sure. He guided he boat down to the passage floor below.
* * *
He and Olivia tied the two guardians back to back with a rope they found in the cabin. She climbed on board and looked around the deck of the boat. Her eyes lingered on the wings. “This is how you people travel?”
“Sometimes, but there are other ways.” He sagged down by the wheel of the boat, beside the large lantern. He turned the wheel to make the boat take to the air with one hand.
They lifted off and turned to fly down the passage toward Mortressa.
Olivia looked past him at the flickering lights at the far end of the passage. “Straight on ‘til morning.”
“What’s that?”
“Peter Pan.” Olivia frowned at him. “You don’t know it? It’s a story about a flying kid.”
“Did he have a winged boat?”
“Nah.” Olivia leaned back against the side of the boat and yawned. “Never mind.”
Nat curled up in Saul’s collar and became almost entirely still, as he did when he slept. Saul kept his eyes on the light. He was almost back to Hidria. It had been far too long.
