The Ascension (16 page)

Jack shook his head.

“It was hard enough just getting Gem here. If we start wandering around corridors looking for some hidden laboratory, we are bound to run into guards. We can’t guarantee that they wil react the way the others have.”

“What others?” Kat demanded. Gem caught sight of her expression.

“There were guards outside your room,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”

“No, I did
not.
Treating me like some little girl.”

Gem watched as Kat snatched up the book she had been reading, clearly furious. At that moment, Gem did believe Kat would be the Winter Queen’s daughter. Kat muttered under her breath as she flicked through it, with some things to say about people who put guards outside other people’s doors that made Gem suspect that the Winter Queen real y wouldn’t want to meet her daughter right then. Gem didn’t know whether it would be a good idea to say anything at that point, but she decided that, when it came to Kat and magic, it was probably better to know what was going to happen in advance.

“Kat, what are you planning?”

“I’m just thinking that, since I don’t care too much about their stupid castle now, there’s nothing to stop us taking the direct route.”

Gem watched as she flicked to the advanced section in her book. Kat pointed one determined finger at the wal of her room. Whether she had a
precocious
talent for fairy magic, or whether it was just that even the ice had the sense not to get in the way of Kat’s current
indignation
, Gem didn’t know.

What she did know was that, a second or so after Kat pointed, a hole melted in the wal . Kat stepped through.

through.

“Are you coming or not?” Kat demanded.

Gem and Jack fol owed behind her hurriedly.

Once in the hole, Gem saw that Kat was in fact melting a ful blown tunnel through the castle.

Apparently, in a castle made of ice, Kat didn’t need ready-made secret passages.

“Right,”

Kat

said.

“Onwards

and…

downwards, actual y. This way.”

Gem had more sense than to argue as Kat melted her way through more ice.

Eventual y, the tunnel disgorged the three of them in the hal Kat had spoken about, though before that, it let them out in a gal ery ful of pictures of Winter scenes and a storeroom containing frozen food. Kat had, Gem thought,
embellished
the truth a little when she said that she had a good sense of direction.

Final y though, there they stood, in a hal that was little more than an icy cave leading up to a shimmering pane of the ice at one end. Its rough shape suggested that it had been
excavated
in a hurry. Cables ran along the floor, running seamlessly through the shield, but beyond that it was solid.

Through it, Gem could make out the shapes of computers and other machines, al humming with power as they worked. Gem wondered idly if al these computers made it easier for Devon to keep track of other worlds, or if maybe that had something to do with his half-Anachronian heritage.

If so, it wasn’t exactly the easy option. The workroom seemed to
eschew
comfort, with its cold, it’s plain functionality, and its lack of even basic comforts. There weren’t even chairs around the machines. Whoever was working at them would have to stand. Someone did stand there, working at one of the computers, his head bent to the keyboard so that al Gem could see of him was the top of a sandy-haired head. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room.

That

fact

was

utterly

disheartening
. Gem had been so sure that her father would be there, so certain, yet now that she was here, she could see that there was no sign of him.

The standing man looked up.

“Dad?”

Gem said it without thinking, because the face was undoubtedly that of Henry Word. He seemed almost as shocked to see her as Gem was to see him standing, striding quickly to the barrier of ice and placing one hand against it. Standing, Henry Word was tal er than Gem, and she had to reach up to put her fingers against the spot where his were.

“Gem! And Mr. Zusak and Ms. Kipling, of course. What are you doing here?”

He seemed surprised, but not greatly now, as though running into his daughter on another world were as
prosaic
as meeting her unexpectedly in his home.

“We came after you. You’ve been gone for more than a week.”

“A week?” Henry Word seemed puzzled for a moment. “A
conundrum
, certainly. I expected time to run a little differently here, of course.

Hypothetically
speaking, I suppose the effect could b e
exacerbated
by the nature of this bubble. Yes, that must be it.”

He said it as though it were only something to be mildly annoyed about, and not the cause of a major rescue effort that had already seen Gem shot with arrows, attacked by satyrs, and captured by an evil queen.

“We’ve been al over Myriad looking for you.”

“Percy sent you, I take it? Yes, he would see sending you as the most
expedient
way of looking for me.”

“And we’ve found you,” Gem said. “Now, we’ve just got to get you out of there.”

“Gem, I-”

She tapped the icy shield. It rang like a crystal wine glass, but seemed much harder. To test it, Gem tried kicking it, but the only result was a bruised foot.

“Kat?”

Kat stepped forward and pointed one finger at the shield, the way she had when forming the tunnel.
Torrid
heat poured off it, but nothing much happened beyond that. Kat looked down at her finger, shook it, and then started rooting around in her book.

“There’s got to be an answer here

“There’s got to be an answer here somewhere. It would help if it had an index.” She started flicking through it, but didn’t seem to be having much luck. In the meantime, Gem decided to try more drastic action.

“Stand back from the shield,” she instructed her father, who took a hesitant step backwards.

“Gem, I real y don’t think you understand…

“Deleterious.”

Gem braced herself for the shower of ice shards the ruler word’s effects would probably
induce
. It turned out though that she need not have bothered, because although the ice
oscillated
and shuddered, it didn’t give way. It was obviously more
resilient
than it looked.

“Kat,” Gem asked. “Any luck with that book?”

“Not so far. If I can just find the right bit…”

“Gem.”

“Wel , keep going. We can’t just leave him there as part of some
nefarious
plan to…”

“Gem!”

This time, Gem stopped at the sound of her father’s voice. Henry Word looked at her with a level of seriousness that made it
patent
that she wasn’t going to like what he said next.

“Gem, the shield wil dissolve on its own once this job is done. Until then, I can’t leave.” Gem was
recalcitrant
.

“There has to be a way. We’ve just got to find it, that’s al .”

Henry Word shook his head.

“Gem, you aren’t understanding me. What I mean is that, until this is done, I’m not
going
to leave.”

Gem had thought about a lot of possibilities for this moment, because meeting her father again was bound to include a great deal of emotion. She had been prepared for acceptance, sadness, even anger, but not for a simple refusal to come back.

“Is this because I’ve spent the last couple of months ignoring you?” Gem asked.

“What? No. You must not think that. It was understandable that you would want time to think, Gem.”

“Then what
i s
it about?” Gem demanded.

“Does it have anything to do with why you’re suddenly standing?” An idea occurred to her. “Did the Winter Queen lure you here with promises of healing you, then force you to work for her?”

“I’m not being forced to do anything,” he assured her, “and the two are slightly different matters. Let’s deal with the question of why I am here first. Mr. Zusak, you have sharp eyes, and a mind to match it, so tel me what you see in here.”

“Um…” there was a little trace of Jack’s old nervousness in that, and Gem was actual y happy to see it. “I suppose it looks a lot like the set up you have to keep the Wordwick games running.” Henry Word nodded, turning back to the nearest machine for a moment in order to make an adjustment.

“That’s because it is identical. You see, there is a problem with my Wordwick games.”

“What sort of problem?” Gem asked, though a hint of
trepidation
worked through her even as she asked it. Whatever could bring her father to this spot in the Winter Queen’s castle had to be bad.

“They are a little
too
wel -designed,” Henry Word explained. “That is not some attempt to
aggrandize
my skil s as a game designer, or even my other, more esoteric skil s. In fact, it is something I am ashamed of. The game was meant to have links to other worlds simply to show them in al their
variegated
glory, but the worlds there were never meant to be more than copies.”

Gem frowned.

“Anachronia is no copy, and you didn’t send us there by accident.”

“Your trip to Anachronia was a special case.

There, I was sending you to help with something real, and you did it through the pods we had designed.

What I am saying is that somehow, even the normal version of the game, which
i s
meant to be just a game, has become tangled up with other worlds.”

“So you get a realistic game?” Kat interrupted. “How is that a bad thing?” Gem got it though.

“Kat, if the real worlds are linked to the game, then what happens if something goes wrong with the servers supporting it? Or what about if people decide to do something stupid, because it’s ‘just a game’?”

Gem knew that Kat would understand that one. She’d been wildly enthusiastic for the fray when she had thought that Anachronia was just a game, but had gained much more of an
aversion
to violence once she started to suspect that it was real.

“How bad could this be?” Gem asked.

“Most of the time, the effects should be
benign
,” her father reassured her through the ice shield. “It wouldn’t take much though for whole worlds to be damaged. That is far too much responsibility for what is supposed to be a game. I should have known that things were going wrong when it attracted the five of you. I take it you know by now that you are al special?”

“You knew?” Gem asked. Henry Word had already turned back to his machines, making yet more adjustments. It made Gem want to
berate
him for his silence. “Dad, answer me. Are you tel ing me that you knew about us al along?”

“I wil explain things ful y when there is time, Gem,” Henry Word cal ed, from a computer. “For now, there is so much work to do. I have the flaw to deal with, and there is this war brewing. I’ve promised the Winter Queen that I wil help with one or two things there, of course.”

“Help?” Gem could hardly believe it. The Winter Queen wanted to conquer worlds, to
blight
everything she touched with her cold, and here was Gem’s father,
helping
her? “How has she managed to persuade you to help, when she’s going to do so much damage?”

“She gave him back his legs,” Jack guessed.

Gem had to admit, it made sense. She could only imagine what Henry Word might give to undo the damage done to him in Anachronia. Even so, the price seemed like a high one. Did he real y plan to pay for the al eviation of his own suffering by adding to that of others? After everything Gem had heard about him, and seen of him, she could hardly believe it.

Except that part of her could. Henry Word had been so
reclusive
that Gem and the others had not known about his injuries until they met him. He spent his time hiding from it, and Gem could easily believe that at least some part of her father would jump at the chance to undo that damage. Stil , she clung to the hope that maybe he didn’t know the truth about what it would cost.

“Dad, you do know the sort of damage she plans to do, don’t you? How many people she plans plans to do, don’t you? How many people she plans on hurting?”

To Gem’s surprise, not to mention her utter disappointment, Henry Word nodded.

“Of course I know. I probably know better than you do, Gem, but I gave my word. The Winter Queen gave me back my legs in exchange for my help, and I cannot go back on it. My word should be
sacrosanct
, or what am I?”

“What are you if you do this?” Gem countered, and she saw Henry Word wince. Stil , he shook his head.

“I won’t discuss this further, Gem. I gave the Winter Queen my word, and now I must do what she asks.”

Gem

turned

away

from

him

in

disappointment. It left her facing the tal , white-haired figure of the Winter Queen, standing at the other end of the hal way, regal and deadly. How long had she been standing there? Why hadn’t her father said something? The Winter Queen flicked a hand, col apsing the tunnel Kat had carved and cutting off their escape, but Gem found herself thinking more about her father. Was it possible that everything he had just said had been for the Winter Queen’s benefit? Did he real y mean any of it?