Act II, The Free LandChapter 26
Chapter 26: Careful, Guinevere
The Academy Investigation Room Corridor.
A fight in an Academy corridor, a portal opening at the wrong back, and a choice made in one second.
A claw took a meter out of the white wall beside Vexana’s head. She fired her staff into the Ender’s knee, and the long leg folded.
Enders had come into the Academy itself. They stood tall and thin on long legs, with claws as long as an arm. The dome kept Enders out, but not the Enders’ own portals. One could open anywhere inside it, even here.
She and Guinevere fought back to back, as always.
“Nine!” Guinevere’s fist cracked a knee joint.
“Ten,” said Vexana. A second knee gave under her light.
“That one was mine!”
“Then be faster.”
Behind Guinevere the air tore open, purple and silent. A long leg stepped out of it. A claw rose over her unguarded back.
Guinevere was mid-swing, facing the other way. She had not seen it.
Vexana’s hand was already moving. “Careful, Guinevere!”
She shoved her clear. The claw closed on Vexana’s wrist instead and pulled. Her boots left the floor. The portal waited at her back.
“No! Vexana!” Guinevere lunged. Her fingers closed on air.
“Stay back!”
She had heard those words once before, in another voice.
It’s all right, thought Vexana. As long as she’s safe.
The portal shut on the sight of Guinevere’s hand, still reaching.
Then there was no floor. No wall, no ceiling, no light. She fell through a dark with no end. It was the void Chang’e had named in class, the one nobody could get near. She did not reach for anything. She let herself fall.
The Emblem at her collar lit. It was answering Guinevere’s, across whatever lay between them.
Fireworks, red and gold. A stage, and Guinevere’s hand tight in hers. A head in her lap under a tree. Each memory hurt, because Guinevere was not beside her. Each one made the star burn brighter. At the tree it shone as brightly as it ever had.
Under the tree, Guinevere’s voice said, I will definitely find a way to destroy it.
Three hours after the corridor, the blue sky of the memory split like paper. A hand came through the crack, huge and sharp, plated in violet.
The Will of the Planet rose out of her memory. Chang’e’s lesson had made it a word on a screen. Now it was a giant in armor with burning eyes, and its voice came from everywhere.
It showed her the end.
The dark became a burning plain. Smoke. Rubble. Through a cracked sky, something vast and winged was coming down. It could only be the Mother Matrix.
Vexana knelt in the ruins, hurt, her uniform torn. Guinevere lay a few steps away, face down in the dust, one red bow torn loose. The others lay broken around her. Pink-red twin tails. Blades beside a hip thruster gone dark. A small pink-haired girl with a doll still in her arm.
Vexana held the Emblem in both hands. Her tears fell on it. It did not light.
“Vexana of The Aspirants, you have reached the end of your future.”
“You shall witness life’s destruction, as all returns to chaos.”
“This is no judgment, merely the universe’s predetermined execution.”
The star split down the middle. Then it was gone.
Every battle she had won that year had led here anyway. None had changed the end. The giant looked at her a moment longer, as one looks at finished work. Then the dark closed.
She was on her knees in the void. Her collar was warm. She touched it, and the Emblem was whole, and lit.
“Is this...”
Her voice shook.
“The only way to protect Guinevere?”
“This destiny is mine to bear.”
From the Academy’s side she could not stop it. From the Enders’ side, she might. She would take the Will’s orders. She would wear the Enders’ shape and walk among them. When the Mother Matrix came down, she would be close enough to blow it up, and herself with it. If the Control Core lay anywhere in this dark, she would take that too.
Nobody could get near the void. She was standing in it.
She would tell no one what she had seen. Not Guinevere.
“Even if I make an enemy of the world, I will protect her forever.”
She stood up in the dark, with the Emblem still lit, closed in her fist.