Ronald smiled amiably. “Pegasuits,” he said. “They gift the user with the power of flight—it’s very simple. Of course, it’s easy to forget how little you have down on the surface.”
They continued past the industrial area and crossed over green fields where cows and sheep grazed. The fields were arranged in steps that ran across the tops of buildings, fences of hard light penning the animals in place.
In total, the journey took ninety seconds. Soon they were approaching a colossal building that dominated the center of the city. The building reached not just upward but outward, spanning hundreds of acres. Its roof was curved in a graceful arc resembling a wave, rolling from west to east in a golden curl. Beneath this, the building’s facade was decorated with huge pillars and columns, each one more than a thousand feet high and as wide as ten men. The windows were vast, too, panes of colored glass as tall as redwood trees, grand figures etched into them that twinkled like cut crystal.
“Where are you taking us?” Kane asked as the strange conveyance shuttled toward the colossal building.
“Where all visitors to Authentiville go,” Ronald replied. “The court of Jack the King.”
It looked like a palace made for gods.
Chapter 10
King Jack’s court was as impressive from the inside as it had been on the outside. The first room the Cerberus crew entered was wide as a football field, with a ceiling so high that birds flew up there, nesting in the distant rafters. The floor was polished onyx that caught every highlight and reflected back the faces of Kane, Brigid and Grant when they peered into it.
There were statues to each side of the vast room, human figures dressed in elaborate armor, carved to three times life-size so that they towered over anyone who entered. The twin statues at either end of the room wielded spears the size of saplings, which they aimed at each other, creating a makeshift arch over the two doorways of the room.
“This sure is one
big
room,” Grant muttered as he saw its proportions for the first time.
Ronald led the way through the room in respectful silence. The Cerberus warriors followed while Ronald’s two psychic readers brought up the rear, their shiny headbands catching the light. Brigid had been thinking about the mind scan that they had performed, concluding that it was mechanically enabled somehow, utilizing some function of the headbands coupled with the equipment they wore at their belts. She peeked surreptitiously at said equipment but it gave away no secrets, its appearance a blank-faced box with a series of small, diodelike lights running up one edge.
Grant stopped before one of the towering statues, brushing a hand across his shaved scalp. “I wonder who she is,” he said.
The statue was of a woman wearing a stylized breastplate, metal skirt and long boots with spiked heels and spurs. A helmet covered her face, leaving only her ruby lips on show. The sculptor had gone to great lengths to elaborate on her cloak, a fan of feathers that flowed down to her ankles, billowing out behind her like the rising tide.
“Looks like an old girlfriend of mine,” Kane said with a chuckle.
A few paces ahead of them, Ronald pulled his chair to a halt and turned back. “This way, please,” he instructed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Laughing like schoolboys, Kane and Grant followed the wheelchair-bound man with Brigid and the mind readers striding behind. As he approached the far door where the twin spear-carrier statues waited, Ronald said a word that none of the Cerberus warriors recognized. The spears in the statues’ hands glowed momentarily and then the double doors opened inward, granting entry into a second room.
“Through here,” Ronald encouraged, leading the way.
Through the doors, the Cerberus warriors found they had entered an even larger room. Its floor was made of translucent red-and-green strips like polished ruby and emerald, while its rafters were so high that clouds had formed beneath the distant ceiling. Birds sang as they flew through those clouds, alighting on huge constructs that depended from the ceiling in odd shapes, each one made from purest gold. This was the court of King Jack.
“I take back what I previously said,” Grant muttered. “Now,
this
is a big room.”
Kane nodded, eyeing the surrounds with amazement. There were no statues in this room, but there were towering pillars that stretched up until they were lost in the wispy clouds. People worked at desks placed at the edges of the room, great rows of them wired into the desk machinery, eyes enshrouded in goggles that plugged directly into their desks.
Other figures moved about the room on wheeled vehicles, single-person conveyances made of a short strut on which the user stood, with a control stick poised in a graceful curve that belled out from the front of the vehicle, enabling them to be operated one-handed.
“Y’know,” Kane commented drily, “I think I’ve seen countries smaller than this room.”
As the Cerberus rebels entered the room, one group of vehicle drivers settled into position at their flanks, accompanying them as they strode across the vast space toward the thrones that stood in the room’s center. The escort riders were dressed in matching uniforms—and they clearly were uniforms—with ear protectors and dark goggles that hid their eyes. They wore the fixed expressions of bored soldiers the world over, using their strange conveyances to keep pace with Ronald and his entourage as they crossed the red-and-green floor to the raised dais where the thrones stood.
There were two thrones, both elaborate with high gold backs and an abundance of gemstone decorations. The backs of the thrones stretched thirty feet into the air, and colorful birds settled on their high tops, singing delightedly as Grant, Kane and Brigid approached. At a glance, the thrones appeared to be constructed from many parts, giving the impression of something industrial or mechanical rather than designed for comfort. Sitting on the thrones were two figures—a man and a woman—with a glowing shaft of energy sparking between them, lancing from the floor to the height of their seats.
The man was dressed in golden armor that had been polished to mirror brilliance and was decorated with a bright red sash that covered one shoulder and hung down past his waist like a cape. The armor featured a golden kilt and a high collar that sat snugly to his neck, above which his face had been left unadorned.
It was the face of an old man, square and strong, and above it grew wiry gray hair that showed no sign of receding. Kane guessed the man was in his sixties but he was a young sixty, still tough-looking with the steely determination of an experienced magistrate or military man.
This was King Jack. His eyes smiled as Kane and his companions approached the thrones, and Ronald instructed them to wait.
Beside the golden king sat his queen, a striking woman with dark eyes and long hair that was colored neon-blue with a brilliance that glowed. Her hair was held back with a dark-colored tiara that reflected the changing vibrancy of the hair. Like her husband, the queen wore armor, hers dark and flexible with a low cut that was reminiscent of a ball gown, and with a beaded necklace on her bare décolletage.
Between the two thrones was a low, circular unit made of burnished golden metal. Roughly fourteen inches across, the unit was formed of concentric rings, each one detailed with carved letters and glyphs eerily similar to those found on the wings of the Mantas. Each ring was slightly higher than its larger predecessor, creating a mound effect that peaked just a few inches from the floor. Within this mound, a golden rod had been placed, fourteen inches long and held firmly by the center circle. The rod crackled with barely restrained energies that flickered around it in a halo, glinting from a rubylike jewel embedded at its crown. This was the strange lancelike source of the crackling energy.
“My lord, my lady,” Ronald announced as they reached the podium containing the thrones. “May I present our guests from the surface clan called Cerberus.” Then he turned to Kane, Grant and Brigid. “Cerberus visitors, this is King Jack and his wife, the Queen Rosalind.”
There were an awkward few seconds in which none of the Cerberus team knew quite what was expected of them. And then Brigid took the initiative, curtseying separately before both the king and the queen and hissing to her companions to do likewise. Feeling self-conscious, Kane and Grant bowed before the royal couple.
“It is an honor to meet you both,” Brigid announced, taking the lead. “I am Brigid Baptiste.”
“The honor’s probably ours, lady,” King Jack replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We don’t get many surface folk coming up here these days.” Strangely, he didn’t sound regal at all—in fact, he sounded decidedly ordinary.
“You pledge fealty to the Cerberus clan?” Queen Rosalind asked. “Is that correct?”
“It is, Your Highness,” Brigid confirmed.
“Then we have another of your people here, don’t we, my dear?” She consulted her husband. “An entrancing and delightful young waif by the name of Domi.”
“That’s why we came here,” Kane began, stepping forward to get closer to the beautiful queen on her throne. As he did so, the guards on their mechanical sleds whirred nearer, as if in warning that Kane should not get too close. Kane noticed that none of them wore weapons and he automatically wondered if he and Grant could take them with their hidden blasters should the need arise. Neither Kane nor Grant ever traveled far without their sleeved Sin Eaters.
“That’s all right,” the king said, waving the sentries back. “These folks aren’t here to hurt us, are you?”
“No, sir, that’s not our intention,” Kane confirmed. “We lost Domi about thirty-six hours ago in the same region where you picked up my friend Grant, here.”
“Grant, is it?” King Jack asked, looking at the dark-skinned ex-Magistrate. “What about the rest of you? You know me and Roz—you folks have names, I take it?”
“Kane,” Kane told him before gesturing to Brigid. “And you already met Bap—”
“Brigid,” Brigid interrupted as Kane started to say her surname.
“Brigid, yes,” the golden-armored Jack repeated, rolling the name around his mouth as if he was sampling a fine wine. “So you’re the
bridge
between these two, is that it?”
Brigid blushed. “Well, I never really thought of it like that, Your Highness. If I am, then it’s just a coincidence.”
“Names can hide a lot, young lady,” King Jack assured her. “You’d be surprised how much of our destinies are decided on the day we’re named.
“Anyway, I’m talking here like you kids don’t have some place to be. You came looking for your friend, Domi, is that it?”
“It is, Your Highness,” Kane agreed.
Before either the king or the queen could respond, Ronald spoke up. “I’ve already placed a summons for her, my lord. She will be with us presently.”
For a moment, the conversation cooled while King Jack discussed the matter with Ronald. The chair-bound man appeared to be some kind of aide and was clearly well thought of by both the royals.
Waiting in silence, Kane felt strange standing in this vast room before this couple. He was more used to combat than he was to negotiation, and making a good impression didn’t come naturally to him. He was still trying to put together the puzzle of what had happened.
From what Brigid had suggested, they were in a city that was locked inside the quantum fold of a teleport jump, hidden in nonlinear space. The glistening ion stream had been a kind of docking system that drew the Mantas and their escorts here. As if that wasn’t unbelievable enough, the technology that was casually on show was incredible.
Reaching for the crackling shaft of energy, King Jack caught Kane’s eye and smiled, and he spoke almost as if he had read Kane’s mind. “I guess you kids have a lot of questions you want to ask. Why don’t we get out of here and you can join us for a little bite to eat. You will eat, I take it?”
Kane nodded. “Right now, I’d eat anything you put before me, Your Majesty.” His companions agreed. Too long waiting around in the Mantas’ enclosed cockpits had left them all ravenous.
King Jack stood, plucking the energy lance from its holding pen in the circular construct between the thrones. Beside him, the neon-haired Queen Rosalind also stood. As Jack pulled loose the energy shaft, hidden lights in the room seemed to dim, switching the bright daylight feel of the vast throne room to a kind of evening warmth.
Together, the royal couple, Ronald and the Cerberus warriors made their way toward one of the imposing exits. It was located between two towering pillars, the door so well camouflaged that it looked as though the room continued behind it.
Perhaps it does, Kane thought, still trying to process the concept that they were within a quantum wormhole.
* * *
“S
O
,
YOU
’
RE
TECHNOLOGISTS
?”
Kane asked as he blew on his soup to cool it. The soup smelled kind of like duck, but Kane could not identify the spices that had been employed to flavor it.
The banquet hall was, if anything, even more impressive than the throne room, despite its smaller proportions. The walls were carved from wood in such a way that they looked like a forest, each carved tree trunk placed in line one after another. Leaves fluttered constantly through the air as if on an autumn breeze, but on closer inspection, each leaf turned out to be a holographic image, allowing diners to see through them when peering across the table to address their fellow guests.
The table itself was constructed in three joined circles, the largest of which was fifteen feet in diameter and placed in the center where it held various dishes that had been prepared for the occasion, despite the lack of warning. The other tables were ten feet across and constructed in such a manner that they appeared to almost bud from the first, joined to their central companion along one smooth edge to allow the food to be brought and served easily.
The room’s centerpiece was a circular fire with a ruby-red flame that seemed able to dance in upon itself in the way a fire spirals under a strong draft. It gave off no heat, and the Cerberus teammates realized that, like the falling autumn leaves, it was holographic and designed solely for decoration.
King Jack sat beside Queen Rosalind at one of the smaller tables, assuring his guests that he liked to be well placed to see what was being served next. He seemed friendly, his manner unthreatening, and Kane felt his guard begin to drop as he spoke with the man.
Jack had invited the Cerberus companions to take up places next to him and his wife. “We can all share one table,” he said. “There’s plenty of room and it saves on too much shouting to be heard.”
Ronald declined the offer to join the king, retreating from the room but leaving his two companions to enjoy the monarch’s company. They remained standing while the food was served, taking up positions at the back wall overlooking the table, their expressions fixed in studied disinterest.
Kane noticed that Jack had brought the strange golden rod with him, and he had placed it in a slot similar to the circular design on throne room’s floor, this one a pace behind the treelike seat in which Jack sat. The rod appeared to be held by some kind of magnetic field, Kane saw, not clamped in place as he had first assumed, and it stood upright, fixed in position and sparkling with unknown energies.