Book 1 - Episode 7 - The Road To Talvyr

THE ROAD TO TALVYR

The knock came from inside the disconnected Heart of Nine.

Once.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Every light in the chamber remained dark.

Yuki did not move.

Her paw was still pressed against the ancient control ring where she had shut the Heart down moments before. The blue-white energy that had filled the enormous chamber was gone. The nine circular Gates surrounding them had become black mirrors set into stone.

No network.

No signal.

No active Gate.

No connection to the Asteria.

Nothing that should have been capable of making a sound.

Then—

Knock.

Tokyo's ears flattened.

"Please tell me ancient cosmic machines normally do that."

Kepi stared at the dead instruments on his wrist.

"They don't."

"Wonderful."

Briar stepped between the others and the center of the chamber. His paw settled near his weapon, but he did not draw it.

Margarito stood perfectly still.

That frightened Yuki more than the knocking.

Normally Margarito reacted to danger before anyone else. A twitch of an ear. A shift of his eyes. A joke delivered half a second too early.

Now there was nothing.

"Margarito?"

His blue eyes remained fixed on the dark center of the Heart.

"I don't feel anyone."

Yuki looked at him.

"Anyone?"

"That's the problem."

He swallowed.

"I feel the place where someone should be."

A third knock came.

But not from the center.

It came from behind them.

Everyone turned.

One of the nine Gates had changed.

The Gate had not activated. There was no portal, no shimmering surface, no dimensional distortion.

Instead, something had appeared on the black stone.

A thin golden line.

It slowly traced itself downward.

Then sideways.

Then upward.

A shape formed.

A doorway.

Tokyo stared at it.

"That wasn't there before."

"No," Pip said.

The little Paranormal Mouse had climbed onto an ancient console and was holding his paper notebook with both paws.

"It was."

Tokyo looked at him.

"What?"

Pip adjusted his tiny spectacles.

"We couldn't see it."

The golden outline finished forming.

At its center appeared a symbol.

Eleven points.

Estiben moved before anyone else.

He stepped toward the Gate.

Yuki caught his arm.

"Wait."

The gray Pathfinder did not resist.

His amber eyes were locked on the symbol.

For the first time since Yuki had known him, his carefully controlled expression had disappeared.

He looked afraid.

Not startled.

Not uncertain.

Afraid.

"I know that symbol," he whispered.

Margarito turned toward him.

"From where?"

Estiben did not answer immediately.

He reached beneath his armor and removed a small leather-bound book.

His journal.

He opened it.

The pages were filled with handwritten coordinates, sketches, star positions and observations accumulated over years of refusing to trust digital records.

He turned through them quickly.

Then stopped.

On the page was the same eleven-point symbol.

Yuki released his arm.

"Estiben."

His voice was barely audible.

"I drew this the day my world disappeared."

The silence afterward felt different.

Not empty.

Heavy.

Estiben placed the journal on the stone floor.

The drawing had been made roughly, with hurried lines and several corrections. Beside it were handwritten star coordinates.

Pip crouched over the page.

"When?"

"Years ago."

"Before you came to Cove?"

"Long before."

Estiben pointed toward a second drawing.

A star system.

Three planets.

A small exploration colony.

His home.

"I was aboard a reconnaissance vessel outside the system. Our navigation instruments began contradicting each other. Stars appeared several degrees from their recorded positions. The computer kept recalculating our location."

His claw moved across the page.

"Then this appeared."

The eleven-point symbol.

"Where?"

"Every navigation display."

Kepi crouched beside him.

"Same time?"

"Within seconds."

"And then?"

Estiben's jaw tightened.

"My colony disappeared."

Tokyo's humor vanished.

Estiben continued.

"When I returned, the star was there. The planets were there. But the colony wasn't."

Briar asked, "Destroyed?"

"No."

Estiben looked at him.

"Never built."

Yuki understood.

That was worse.

Estiben tapped the journal.

"According to every database I could access, the settlement project had been proposed and canceled forty-three years before I was born. The ships that carried my family there had never launched. The people I remembered living beside either existed somewhere else..."

He stopped.

"...or had never existed at all."

Margarito lowered himself beside the journal.

"But you remembered."

"Yes."

"Anyone else?"

"Not that I found."

Pip looked up.

"That's why you started writing everything down."

Estiben nodded.

"Digital records changed."

His paw rested on the old paper.

"Paper didn't."

Yuki looked toward the golden doorway.

The eleven-point symbol waited.

"Did you ever find out what it meant?"

"No."

Estiben closed the journal.

"Until now."

Kepi refused to open the doorway immediately.

Yuki agreed.

That surprised Tokyo.

"I expected at least three terrible decisions before lunch."

"We haven't had lunch," Yuki said.

Tokyo considered that.

"Good point."

They examined the chamber manually.

The Heart remained disconnected.

Kepi confirmed it four times.

No energy was moving through the nine Gates. No external network had returned. The Asteria remained unreachable through Heart channels.

The golden doorway had appeared without activating any system they could detect.

That left two possibilities.

Something inside the chamber was still functioning independently.

Or the doorway was not part of the Heart.

Pip preferred the second possibility.

Briar hated both.

Margarito approached the doorway but stopped several steps away.

"Can you sense anything?" Yuki asked.

He closed his eyes.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then his whiskers trembled.

"Distance."

Tokyo frowned.

"That's what you sense?"

"No."

Margarito opened his eyes.

"I sense someone thinking about distance."

Estiben stared at him.

Margarito pointed toward the doorway.

"Whoever is on the other side isn't trying to reach us."

"What are they doing?" Kepi asked.

"Waiting for us to decide whether we're going to reach them."

Yuki studied the eleven-point symbol.

The older version of herself had warned them.

The Heart had shown them worlds connected through impossible histories.

They had already seen that the Gates were more than transportation.

They could connect choices.

Memories.

Possible futures.

And now a doorway existed where no doorway had been visible before.

Yuki stepped forward.

Briar immediately said, "Yuki."

She stopped.

He did not order her back.

That mattered.

"What?"

"You don't have to be the first paw touching everything dangerous."

Tokyo nodded solemnly.

"We've been meaning to discuss this."

Yuki looked at them.

Kepi raised one paw.

"Operationally, he has a point."

Pip raised his tiny paw.

"Historically, also."

Margarito smiled faintly.

"Emotionally—"

"Don't."

"Understood."

Estiben stepped forward.

"I'll open it."

Yuki looked at him.

"Because it's connected to your colony?"

"Because if it is, I need to know."

"That's not the same thing."

"No."

Estiben met her eyes.

"It's my choice anyway."

Yuki slowly nodded.

"Yes."

Estiben placed his paw against the eleven-point symbol.

Nothing happened.

Then he knocked.

Three times.

The doorway opened.

There was no explosion of light.

No roaring portal.

No violent gravitational distortion.

There was simply a road.

A narrow stone road stretched away from the Heart of Nine into darkness.

Stars hung overhead.

Not space.

A sky.

Yuki could see mountains in the distance and something like silver grass moving beneath a wind they could not feel from inside the chamber.

Kepi scanned it.

His instrument produced no reading.

"Nothing."

"Broken?" Tokyo asked.

"No."

Kepi stared at the display.

"It says there is nothing beyond the doorway."

Tokyo looked at the road.

"There's clearly a lot of nothing."

Pip approached the threshold.

"Don't cross."

Everyone looked at him.

He pointed down.

The stone road contained writing.

Not glowing symbols.

Letters.

Old, deeply carved letters.

Estiben crouched and brushed dust away.

He read them aloud.

THE ROAD REMEMBERS THOSE THE MAP FORGOT.

Nobody spoke.

Farther ahead another inscription was visible.

Estiben stepped closer without crossing the threshold.

TALVYR — 417

Kepi looked up sharply.

"Distance?"

"Maybe."

"Units?"

"Unknown."

Pip flipped through his notes.

"Talvyr."

Yuki turned.

"You know it?"

"I know the name."

Pip searched faster.

"It appears in fragments from pre-Heart navigation records. Always incomplete. Usually treated as a transcription error."

He found the page.

"Talvyr was supposedly a transit settlement."

"Supposedly?" Briar asked.

"Because no map contains it."

Estiben's ears moved forward.

"No map contains my home either."

Pip slowly looked at him.

"Exactly."

They did not immediately take the road.

That was Yuki's decision.

They returned to the chamber entrance first.

The ordinary passage leading back toward their physical route remained accessible. The Heart might be disconnected, but they were not trapped.

Kepi marked the threshold mechanically.

Briar established return procedures.

Tokyo inspected their equipment.

Pip copied every inscription onto paper.

Margarito sat against the wall and watched Estiben.

Eventually Estiben noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You've been staring at me for seven minutes."

"Six."

"Why?"

Margarito tilted his head.

"I'm trying to decide whether you're frightened."

"I am."

Margarito blinked.

He had not expected the answer.

Estiben continued checking his rifle.

"Fear is information."

"Sometimes."

"Usually."

"Sometimes fear is just fear."

Estiben looked at him.

"Is that your professional psychic opinion?"

"No. That's my professional coward opinion."

Tokyo laughed from across the chamber.

Estiben almost smiled.

Almost.

Margarito noticed.

"That counted."

"It did not."

"It absolutely counted."

"I did not laugh."

"You thought about laughing."

"Stay out of my mind."

"I wasn't in your mind."

Estiben paused.

Margarito grinned.

"Your face moved."

For a moment, the impossible road became merely a road beside friends preparing badly for something dangerous.

Yuki watched them.

Then she realized Briar was watching her.

"What?"

"You smiled."

"No."

"Your face moved."

Tokyo pointed at Margarito.

"He's teaching us."

Yuki turned away.

"Prepare to move."

They crossed the threshold twelve minutes later.

Yuki was not first.

Estiben was.

That was important.

He stepped onto the road and waited.

Nothing attacked him.

No memories changed.

No Gate closed.

He looked back.

"Stable."

Briar crossed second.

Kepi third.

Tokyo fourth.

Pip rode inside a protected compartment on Tokyo's shoulder harness.

Margarito stopped beside Yuki.

"You coming?"

She looked once more at the disconnected Heart.

Nine dark Gates.

No center.

No one controlling them.

The doorway to Talvyr remained open anyway.

That bothered her.

It also gave her hope.

"Yes."

They crossed together.

The doorway remained behind them.

For the first kilometer, Talvyr seemed almost ordinary.

The road wound through silver grass beneath a deep violet sky.

Two moons hung low above distant mountains.

There were no buildings.

No animals.

No ruins.

Only the road.

Estiben led with his compact rifle lowered.

Every few hundred meters, he stopped and compared the stars with his handwritten journal.

Finally Kepi asked, "Recognize them?"

"No."

Another kilometer.

Estiben stopped again.

This time longer.

Yuki approached.

"What?"

He pointed toward the northern sky.

"That star shouldn't be there."

Kepi looked.

"Based on what?"

"Everything."

Estiben opened his journal.

He showed them several star charts drawn years apart.

"That is a class-blue giant."

Tokyo squinted upward.

"And?"

"It should be visible from seventeen inhabited systems."

Pip climbed onto Estiben's shoulder to see the page.

"But it isn't."

"No."

"Meaning?"

Estiben closed the journal.

"Either we're somewhere no modern map describes..."

He looked toward the road.

"...or that star has been removed from every map I've ever seen."

They continued.

The first evidence of civilization appeared after three hours.

A sign.

Physical.

Wooden.

Weathered.

Someone had painted a single word across it.

TALVYR

Below it:

POPULATION: 8,214

Someone had crossed out the number.

Underneath:

8,207

Crossed out.

8,199

Crossed out.

The numbers continued downward.

The latest number was:

7,881

Tokyo stared at it.

"That's not comforting."

Briar examined the ground.

"Tracks."

Yuki saw them.

Paw prints.

Many.

Recent.

"Someone lives here," Kepi said.

Margarito had become quiet again.

Yuki noticed.

"What do you feel?"

"People."

"How many?"

"I don't know."

"Are they afraid?"

Margarito shook his head.

"That's what's strange."

He looked toward the valley ahead.

"They're waiting."

Estiben turned.

"For us?"

"No."

Margarito's expression darkened.

"For someone to remember them."

The road descended.

And Talvyr appeared.

A city filled the valley.

Stone towers rose beneath the violet sky. Bridges connected rooftops. Warm amber lights glowed behind thousands of windows. Wind turbines turned slowly along the ridge.

Smoke rose from chimneys.

Cats walked through streets.

Children ran between houses.

Market stalls remained open beneath hanging lanterns.

It was alive.

Entirely alive.

Yet no map in their universe said it existed.

A bell rang from the tallest tower.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Every cat in the city stopped.

Thousands of faces turned toward the road.

Toward Yuki.

Toward Margarito.

Toward Kepi, Briar and Tokyo.

Then toward Estiben.

An elderly cat standing near the city gate dropped the basket she was carrying.

Fruit scattered across the stones.

She stared at Estiben.

Her mouth opened.

No sound came.

Estiben froze.

Yuki saw his paws begin to tremble.

The old cat walked toward him.

Slowly at first.

Then faster.

Estiben did not move.

She stopped directly in front of him.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She raised one paw and touched the side of his face.

Estiben's breathing stopped.

The old cat whispered one word.

"Estiben?"

Margarito looked at Yuki.

Tokyo's ears lowered.

Kepi forgot his scanner.

Briar's paw fell away from his weapon.

Estiben stared at the old cat.

"I don't know you."

Her face broke.

"I know."

She looked beyond him toward the road.

"We remembered you."

Estiben could barely speak.

"Who are you?"

The old cat touched his face again.

"My name is Marael."

She swallowed.

"And Talvyr has been waiting for the Pathfinder for thirty-seven years."

Behind her, the bells continued ringing.

Not an alarm.

A welcome.

Yuki looked across the impossible city and understood the terrifying truth.

The road had not brought them somewhere hidden from the universe.

It had brought them somewhere the universe had already forgotten.

And somewhere beyond Talvyr, beneath a sky containing stars that no longer appeared on any chart, something had begun removing worlds long before the Heart of Nine ever awakened.

Estiben opened his old handwritten journal.

For the first time, one of its blank pages was no longer blank.

A line of ink was appearing by itself.

Slowly.

Letter by letter.

YOUR HOME WAS NOT THE FIRST.

A second sentence formed beneath it.

TALVYR WILL NOT BE THE LAST.

Then a final line appeared.

Estiben's amber eyes widened.

THE ROAD TO THE ELEVENTH BEGINS HERE.

And somewhere far beyond the mountains, another bell answered.