“It’s a bit of a relief,” she admitted.
“I can imagine,” I said. “I would find it completely nerve-racking if a friend just disappeared and I didn’t know what happened to them.”
Ursula stared at me for a moment. “So you’re saying that if it were your friend, you’d want to know what happened.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Even if it was something bad?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I think that’s just human nature.”
“I think I’ve been around Incarnates so long I’ve forgotten what human nature is like,” she said flatly.
“I’m sorry,” I intoned, “but I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She merely stared at me for a moment, and emotionally I could feel her wrestling with hesitancy and doubt, as if she was trying to come to a decision about something.
Finally she stood up and said, “Come with me. I need to show you something.”
Chapter 32
We ended up back in the Cosmos Corridor, where Ursula once again brought up the dimensional vortex. As before, the same two man-shaped figures were in the beam of light, and I could sense them empathically.
Ursula gestured toward the pair in the light beam. “You said these were your friends.”
I groaned noncommittally, not wanting to get into the details of how I knew the two men.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “they don’t make it.”
She looked at me expectantly, but I simply frowned, not sure what she was talking about.
“They don’t make what?” I finally asked.
“They don’t make it,” she repeated. “They don’t survive.”
“Huh?” I blurted out. “What do you mean, they don’t make it? Of course, they make it!”
“Look,” she said, pointing to an area farther ahead of the men along the beam of light. I gazed at the region she indicated, noting that the beam seemed to be twisted and distorted there.
“That’s some kind of dimensional rift,” she explained. “It came out of nowhere, but when these two go through it, they’ll die.”
Stunned, I simply shook my head.
“No,” I insisted. “It’s not possible.”
“I’m sorry, but it is.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I practically growled. “They make it through. It’s already happened.”
“Maybe it did,” Ursula said, giving me a forlorn look. “However, in this place, nothing is set — not even events in the past. Forces arise, come into play — and things come undone.”
I found myself breathing heavily, getting angry.
“Get Endow,” I practically demanded. “Tell her to fix this.”
“She can’t,” Ursula stated sorrowfully.
“Sure she can. She can do the same thing she did with that driver — endow them with an ability that will let them survive.”
Ursula shook her head. “She won’t.”
“Well, we won’t know until we ask her.”
Giving me a sad look, she said, “I already did.”
I simply stood there in stunned disbelief, unable to speak.
“I asked her as soon as I realized what was going to happen,” she continued.
“And?” I barked.
“She said she’s not meant to save those two, and they have to be left to their fate.”
*****
Fuming and frustrated beyond words, I allowed Ursula to drag me from the Cosmos Corridor and into a passageway outside.
“So what good are they?” I finally said. “What good are these Incarnates and all their vaunted powers if they can’t save a couple of guys like that?”
I gestured angrily toward the room we’d just left as I finished speaking.
“You have to understand,” Ursula countered. “It may seem like they can do whatever they want, but every Incarnate has duties — obligations they can’t shirk. Thus, they can’t always do what they want — or what we’d like them to do.”
Unfazed by Ursula’s rhetoric, I was about to continue my rant when the entire passageway suddenly shook convulsively. At the same time, a familiar sound — physically agonizing and mentally excruciating — echoed throughout the place.
Reverb! I thought instantly.
Chapter 33
I found myself gritting my teeth and groaning as Reverb’s voice sounded all around us. Ursula, feeling no need to hold back, let out a sonorous, undulating scream of torment while at the same time bringing her hands up to cover her ears.
I immediately shut down my pain receptors. As the noise receded and the place stopped shaking, Ursula swiftly took her hands from her ears and brought them together in front of her, about six inches apart. Her palms, I noticed, had blood on them. It was then that I realized her ears were bleeding.
She seemed to concentrate for a moment, and seconds later an object appeared, floating, between her hands. It was a small triangular prism, maybe three inches long and made of stone. Its surface was covered with strange markings and designs that glowed softly.
No sooner had the prism appeared, however, than we were assaulted by another tortuous cacophony of sound that rattled the walls and floor. Ursula made a harsh gasping sound, then her eyes rolled up in her head. At the same time, the stone prism ceased floating and dropped.
I shifted into super speed, catching the prism before it struck the floor. (Somehow I doubted that it would break, but didn’t feel the need to take chances.) Wanting to keep my hands free, I slipped it into a pocket and then — after getting into position to catch Ursula — switched back to normal speed. Based on how I’d situated myself, she practically fell into my arms.
I lifted her up, pulling her close to my chest, and quickly looked her over. In addition to her ears, she now had blood running from her nose. Based on that alone, I guessed she was in pretty bad shape. (For all I knew, my own condition was probably just as bad — I simply wasn’t feeling it.)
I spent a moment trying to determine my next course of action. I could teleport us easily enough, but — although his voice had resonated all around us — I didn’t know exactly where Reverb was. (Truth be told, I didn’t even know if he was inside the castle.) If
