And the Old Man had stood there and watched it happen. He’d stood there and smiled.
We’d trusted him. We’d all trusted him, we’d all been willing to die for him if necessary. We all knew why we were on InterWorld, why we’d been chosen, what we were doing. We’d all taken the oath and knew the risks.
And in the end, he’d dumped everyone onto a half-working ship, abandoned our Prime ship—our home—to HEX, and watched the destruction of my world without doing a thing to stop it.
I opened my eyes.
I had a headache like nothing I’d ever felt before, and I could vaguely feel Hue in the back of my mind. As I had been when FrostNight was first released, I was captive on what looked to be a Binary world. Everything was shiny and smooth, all angles and clean glass. I wasn’t in the same kind of mesh cage I’d woken up in before, but I was still bound. I was lying on the floor, pale wires snaking around me. I knew they would be laid out in a five-pointed star, likely inverted, before I even looked. I also knew I was at the center of it.
My hands were bound, each wrist held to the floor by about a foot of thick white chain. They were made of something lighter than metal, but it seemed a lot sturdier. The floor was white tile, so bright it hurt my eyes to look at. There was a single spire standing at each point of the circuitry star, five in total, with a small globe at the top of each. They looked like conductors, or something similar.
“Good morning, pup.”
Lord Dogknife’s growling voice was unmistakable, and the leader of HEX looked at me with distaste, lip curling back as though he didn’t like the scent of me. Lord Dogknife was taller than anyone I’d known on my world, powerful and perfectly muscled. The word “Adonis” came to mind, pretty much at the same time as “Anubis,” which was an equally apt description. He had a head like a wolf or hyena, though it still somehow bore a strong resemblance to a human face. It was like he’d gotten stuck halfway through transforming.
I ignored him. I forced myself into a sitting position and looked around, dully curious as to the rest of my surroundings. There was a sharp ache in my chest, like my heart had turned to ice and shattered. It hurt to breathe, to think, to even be. My world was gone. What was I fighting for now?
“I suppose I should thank you for one thing, at least,” Lord Dogknife said. I continued to ignore him, though there was this strange tick-tick-tick sound that filled me with an unidentifiable dread. I looked back, trying to find the source of it—and there, approaching on Lord Dogknife’s right, was Lady Indigo.
She was still a giant spider thing, her bonelike appendages being used as legs now rather than wings. Her skin was still reddish and transparent, her bones visible beneath her rubbery flesh.
“You’ve returned one of my generals to me,” Lord Dogknife said with a smile, reaching out to run his hand along one of the long bones that arced up from her back. She was using them to walk, like a spider, though her body was vertical instead of horizontal, her feet not touching the ground. “And now, since you’re here, I can keep her.”
Ah. Lady Indigo was the alternate power source Lord Dogknife had mentioned. I supposed that made sense, considering the power she had from all the things she’d absorbed in the Nowhere-at-All. . . . “Hello again, Harker,” she said. I could barely hear her over the memories of my comrades screaming as she absorbed their essences.
“I almost thought you were going to invite me to your lovely home when last we met,” she said, her lips peeling back over her teeth in a horrific grin. “Tell me, how did you manage to break my link with your lovely friend?”
I swallowed thickly, remembering Josephine’s last moments, the way she and Avery had smiled at each other before he sliced through the threads around her with his circuitry sword. I remembered the way she’d taken InterWorld’s oath before she died.
They watched me for a moment; when I didn’t respond, Lord Dogknife gave her a soothing smile. “It hardly matters, Lady Indigo. In mere moments, everything will be ours.”
She smiled again, pleased. “I know you wished him dead on his world, Lord Dogknife, but I must say I agree with the Professor’s decision to bring him here. This way is so much better. The InterWorld ship is still so full of tasssssty Walkers. . . .”
“Once FrostNight is fully powered, the Walkers will be of no more concern to us,” Lord Dogknife reminded her. “Our ascension will ensure that.”
Lady Indigo frowned. “But the InterWorld vessel will be one of the last—”
“Hush, my dear,” he said, though there was an undercurrent of a growl to it once again. “The Harker is clever. We mustn’t say too much.”
“The Harker isssssss . . . clever . . .” she repeated, looking at me hungrily. Literally hungrily, like she wanted to eat me.
“FrostNight will be upon us soon. It will return to its roost, and we will feed it as mother birds.”
“Mother . . . Mother birdssssss . . .”
I looked away, still only partially able to summon up any measure of caring. The only thing that piqued my interest at all was Lord Dogknife’s warning to not say anything more in front of me. I was the thorn in his paw, and
he was starting to recognize it. I smiled grimly. That was fitting. That was all InterWorld had ever been able to be.
InterWorld will be one of the last, she’d said. I supposed that was a small comfort, but when FrostNight came, it would wipe out everything. Like it had wiped out my planet.
That sharp, stabbing ache made itself known in my chest again, and I ignored the little voice in my head that whispered fight. What would I fight for? Revenge? That was useless.
There was a huge computer on the far wall, seamless and white, and a full screen with programs opening and closing in rapid succession. I knew without even a second thought that this was the Professor’s nonhuman form. It seemed to be controlling all the power in the area; the programs on the monitor seemed to correspond with bits of equipment all over the room powering on or off.
I concentrated, somewhat listlessly casting about for a portal. I thought I sensed the mere thread of one, somewhere close, but I couldn’t reach it. The chains kept me from Walking, which I had more or less expected. I was able to pick up on the classification for this planet, though; Earth Fe987. The last projected planet in FrostNight’s path.
“FrostNight comes,” said Lord Dogknife. I was getting really tired of hearing those words.