"You'd rather not think about it?"
"No. Now the League has to kill us or conscript us; that's the only way to convince us they weren't lying."
"Sorry. Didn't think of that."
She smiled ruefully. "My Uncle Howdiri — the greatest thief in my family — always had a saying. 'Don't be a little paranoid; worry about everything, or let it all go.' So shut up, Phil, and let's just enjoy the Earthlight."
Obediently, I shut up.
We held hands.
We drew closer.
We enjoyed the Earthlight.
26: THE END OF THE RAINBOW
A sound caught my attention. Reluctantly, I turned from Annah and saw Sebastian standing a short distance off. He looked shockingly pale, like someone out of bed for the first time after a month-long illness; but the boy was conscious and vertical, his eyes able to focus even if they didn't quite meet my gaze.
The Rosalind look-alike was gone. A girl-sized mass of black slithered back through the dust toward the main heap of cellules. That surprised me a bit — I thought the Lucifer might have remained in Rosalind form to prod Sebastian in case he showed signs of a relapse. But maybe it was wise not to keep reminding the boy of the girl he'd loved and lost: best just to wake him and get out of the way.
Annah released her grip on me. "How are you feeling?" she asked Sebastian.
"Bad," he said. "But I'll live."
"Did the Lucifer explain everything to you?"
The boy nodded.
"You couldn't have known," I said. "There's no reason to feel bad because you were fooled by a monster."
"That's not why I feel bad." He took a quick breath. "Let's get this over with, okay?"
"You know what you're supposed to do?"
"I know what I'm going to do," he said. "Back to Niagara. Put things right. Once the cage is working again, we can bring the Lucifer home."
Home. Interesting choice of words.
I'd tucked the ‹BINK›-rod into my sleeve. Now I pulled it out and held it up. "I'll go with you," I said.
"No." Sebastian gave me a hard look. "I want to do this alone."
"You will be doing it alone," I said, "but the first few seconds might be messy. The rod likely takes us back exactly where we started — which means the middle of the cage. If the evil Lucifer is still there… well, it'll take your nanite friends a moment to swoop to your rescue. I want to make sure you survive that moment."
"You think I'm just a helpless kid?"
"No," I said, looking into his angry eyes. "After everything you've been through, you aren't a kid. But you aren't a man either — not if you let stupid pride reject a reasonable offer of assistance. A true man knows when he can use help."
"Oh good," Annah said. "Then you'll let me come too. I was afraid you'd want me to stay here until you big strong males made Niagara safe for womenfolk. But if a true man knows when he can use a help…"
I glared at her. She returned a look of total innocence.
"Let's just go," Sebastian said. "I'm tired."
Annah put one arm around the boy's shoulders and the other around me. "If we're linked together, will we transport together?"
"Only one way to find out," I said. I raised the rod.
‹BINK›
I expected we'd return to blackness — the utter absence of light that had filled the prison cavern once the laser cage stopped working. But now there were oil lamps burning near the entrance to the chamber: lamps held by eight figures in Keeper robes, shedding enough light to see the entire room. Every last cellule had moved outside the prison cube. They must have wanted to avoid getting trapped if the lasers miraculously reactivated. A mound of them now lay heaped where Dreamsinger had fallen — probably trying to penetrate her armor's force field, or to suffocate her by sealing out fresh air. The mound was much smaller than the original Lucifer heap; the remaining mass had reshaped itself into human figures, those who were now dressed as Keepers. The false Keepers were busy assembling devices near the mouth of the cavern, contraptions of metal and plastic and electronic parts. I assumed the devices were weapons, traps to spring on the first Spark Lords who came to investigate. The components of the devices must have been produced by the evil Lucifer itself, in much the same way it created lightbulbs.
A moment after Annah, Sebastian, and I materialized, every Keeper turned our direction… their attention drawn by the distinctive ‹BINK› noise. The black mound pressing on Dreamsinger hissed sharply as if it too had noticed our arrival. The mound didn't move — if it shifted off, the Sorcery-Lord would be able to breathe again — but the Keepers by the entrance dropped what they were doing and charged at us full speed.
Their eyes were on Sebastian. They obviously realized they had only a tiny window of time to kill the boy before his powers reasserted themselves. Already, nanites in the air must have been processing Sebastian's presence; soon they would recognize him and congregate en masse to do his bidding. But not instantly — I didn't know how fast nanotech could work, but I suspected it would take several seconds to analyze the situation and summon sufficient force to provide adequate protection. Most of Sebastian's life, he'd been surrounded by an attendant nano cloud, immediately ready to do his bidding… but he'd left the normal plane of existence, and now that he was back, the nanites needed time to regroup.
Annah and I had to buy the boy that time.
We stepped in front of him, putting ourselves in the path of the charging Keepers. When we'd first arrived, they'd had normal human faces; but in their haste to reach us, they made no effort to control their features. Eyes and skin reverted to masses of granuled black, with here and there a maggot of white from the mutated Jode. All semblance of humanity vanished in a flash… and yet their writhing fleck-filled faces conveyed ferocious hatred, a lunatic hunger to splash our blood onto the cold stone.
I raised my fists the way Impervia always did when facing drunken rowdies. Beside me, Annah did the same. Our job was simple: keep the Lucifers away from Sebastian, even if we ourselves got torn apart in the process.
I wanted to tell Annah I loved her but that seemed so trite.
The Lucifers hit us like a battering ram. I managed to throw a punch in the split-second before impact… but my fist simply buried itself in yielding grains of sand, and then I was knocked off my feet by the sheer mass of attackers.
Two Keepers went down with me, unable to keep their balance after the tackle. We all hit the stone floor hard. I took the impact on my shoulder, slamming into the uneven rock; fortunately I was still wearing my winter coat, padded with enough eiderdown to soften the blow… but shoots of pain still lanced down my arm, leaving my fingers numb. The Lucifers, clad only in light robes, made more of a splash: close to my face, one of their arms literally exploded when it struck the stone, like a sandbag rupturing at the seams. The arm devolved into black grains spurting out the robe's sleeve. The splashing cellules made a raspy sound; but seconds after they burst apart they began skittering together again, trying to re-coagulate into the semblance of human flesh.
More robes rushed past me as I sprawled on the floor. I lashed out wildly, hoping to trip someone; my leg caught somebody's foot but I don't know how much effect it had. The world was a chaos of robes, cellules, and pseudo-anatomy. I couldn't see either Sebastian or Annah. The Lucifers seemed as disoriented as I was — if they'd made an effort to hold me down I could have been pinned easily, but they showed no interest in doing so. Even the Keepers who'd tackled me had scrambled off, struggling toward Sebastian. He was their target; I was nobody, a mere distraction. Therefore I had the freedom to claw at the creatures that crawled close beside me, with no answering attacks from the Lucifers. They were simply trying to get disentangled while I was doing everything I could to slow them down.