ARC of the IMMORTALS/Book 1

Pursuit: 11 / Hinterland’s Sky Turned Purple

Recap: Jac and Yon are in the Platform. P-Jac is searching for the Gatekeeper.

Recap (continued) Bendel is preparing to capture Touzdae on the Nez. Harry returned from the Needlecraft. And Touzdae has taken to extraordinary measures.

“Get over here Harry, I need your help,” Bendel barked. Harry scurried to the control screens. “I’m having trouble finding Touzdae’s location on the ship.”

Harry peered at one screen and another.

“This is crazy, but there’s a ship-wide dampening field,” Harry: incredulous.

“Source?” Bendel asks leaning over Harry’s shoulder.

“We need to tune the sensors to see through the layers of energies.”

“What are you doing? What is this?” Yon awoke to find himself in a ship near Jac.

“I’ve made the escape craft from the Nez, as a respite from the realities out there,” Jac paused. Yon looked at him quizzically and disapproved. “I’m learning how to make transdimensional space right now. Silence from you, Yon.”

Yon stopped his thoughts, actions, and voice. He went into observation mode.

Was Jac’s bath in a profusion of golden flakes and dust emanating from a future or a projection of what he wanted? He sensed the Being in his heart. Was the Being obscured in a bulbous craft with a small portal someone that he knew? He was reading the thoughts of this Being on how to design a transdimensional chamber. Whoever the Being was — it felt like him before the accident at the Levelz when he was whole. But the identity was elusive, obscured, and out of reach.

Stay on task, he told himself. He continued to absorb the feel of the construction of the transdimensional chamber.

Bendel raced down to the cell where Crul Bahj was jailed. He peered at the hibernating beast with the three monitors. There was definitely a smaller humanoid inside, behind the beast. He switched on the microphone and spoke:

“Touzdae, I know that’s you. If you don’t come out I’ll kill Jac’s bounty. This beast,” Bendel said.

“Bendel, Harry here. The focal point has switched to the bottom of the Pool of Life,” Bendel heard through his earpiece. He looked back at the monitors, she was gone.

P-Jac had entered three shops following the light. They were empty. He stood on the cobblestone alley and closed his eyes in the dense fog. His thought was — Come to me Gatekeeper, put the key in my hand.

When P-Jac opened his eyes he saw the shop wrap around him. An ancient frail woman stood behind the counter.

“May I help you young man?” she looked up at him. Shattered into pieces that faded into dust; she vanished.

A very tall robust man entered the room. The figure bent down so as not to impact his head with the ceiling.

“Oh Jac, It’s you. Have you lost your ability to make light?” The man coughed. The ceiling over his head deconstructed and formed a tall dome like a cathedral.

“I can see that you look like Jac but you are not him. You cannot make your own light. Can you come up here and look me in the eye?”

P-Jac closed his eyes and saw a small shelf opposite the man’s head. He sat on the shelf creating a cloud of dust.

The tall man coughed in the dust cloud.

A light appeared at the apex of the dome. It was a very tiny star or sun floating there.

“Ah there is some Jac in you?” the gaunt man was much taller and his head was as big as the height of P-Jac’s body. Nevertheless, P-Jac looked him in the eye.

“Yes, I am the Gatekeeper. And you are here for a key. For you a half-off sale for a key,” the large tall man laughed. The laugh’s vibration nearly knocked P-Jac off his perch.

“I have nothing to pay you with,” P-Jac said.

“Not true,” said the Gatekeeper, optimism, and sarcasm filled his presence and voice. “For I will take one-quarter of your Needlecraft ship and one-quarter of the ship you call Nez,” he looked to P-Jac for nonlexical signs. “Let’s make this payable when you emerge from the Confluence of Dimensions, or as you may call it: The Platform.”

“Deal,” P-Jac said. He felt that he must have blinked because they were both P-Jac’s height in the shop, together face-to-face. No dome overhead.

“May I interest you in a talent?”

“I haven’t nothing more to pay you with,” P-Jac said.

“A bonus, free of charge,” the Gatekeeper said as he faded into the ancient woman.

“I am enough,” P-Jac said.

“Congratulations, young man, you have absorbed the talent,” the ancient female sighed. “Be off with you, young man.” She waved her hand at him and it detached at the wrist and whisked him out of the shop.

He stood facing the two ships grasping a key in his right hand.

The J-NezTouz-Escape Craft detached from the Fish. P-Jac’s mouth fell open. The sky turned purple. Bendel and Harry scrambled on the bridge. Bendel fired two laser blasts at the craft as it vanished.

The Escape Craft reappeared on the stern of the Nez. The gray extinguished the purple sky over the course of thirty six seconds.

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