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Breathing hard, I just lie here recovering from my second brush with pancake-hood. "That worked out well."
"I hope that's a joke." Sarah sounds breathless too. "We failed miserably."
"Because the Echo wouldn't let us out. I'm guessing that means nobody else can get in either."
"That would make sense." She rolls onto her side to look at me. "If the Brain wants our cooperation, why won't it let us leave? We need help from our friends."
"Seems like we aren't allowed to get help. We have to do this on our own."
"What now?"
I sit up and stare at the gateway, with its whirling blackness and slithering tongues of energy. What does the Brain want? Not like we can ask it, since the thing isn't a living being. It's a collection of magics, I assume. Even Aldith seemed uncertain of what the Brain is or how Sefton Stainthorpe used it. I doubt the Echo can keep the Brain functioning for much longer. The desperation evidenced by the lightning and fireballs, and our abduction, proves the point.
The Echo needs us. Maybe we can leverage that.
I scramble to my feet. "Jarek, would you mind taking us to the castle?"
He shakes his head, which I assume means he doesn't mind and will take us there. I sit down beside Sarah, who has already pushed up into a cross-legged sitting position, and hold on while Jarek lopes down the street away from the gateway. He turns down another street, and another, and another, moving faster with each turn until I finally spot the sheer cliff that houses the castle at its summit.
Jarek halts at the base and raises his hand to the level of the summit.
Sarah and I step off the golem's palm, onto solid ground.
"Thanks, buddy," I say. "We'll call if we need you. And let us know if you need anything too."
He nods, then turns to walk away.
Sarah and I stand on the cliff's pinnacle, with the castle looming behind us.
"Now that we're here," she says, "what's the plan?"
"Uh, there is no plan. We wing it."
"Perfect. Guess it was too much to hope for a sliver of a strategy, much less a fully formed one."
I grasp her hand. "Let's go inside and see what we can see."
She lets me lead her across the rock-strewn ground, heading for the castle gates. "How long have you known Jarek?"
"A few months."
"In Echo time, which is different from mortal time."
"According to Aldith, it can be different. I'm no expert on that stuff. I didn't even know time behaved differently here until Aldith told me."
Sarah glances at me, seeming puzzled. "I still don't understand the time stuff. I hope stopping the apocalypse won't involve me needing to understand quantum physics. I don't remember geometry, though I probably took that in high school—or so Allison says."
"Everybody has to endure geometry class."
"Think I'm glad I don't remember it."
I chuckle. "Wish I'd lost that memory. I got a C in geometry. And don't even get me started on trig."
At the castle gates, we pause. Well, I make us pause because I'm a little worried that the castle might reject us too, and we'll end up tumbling off the cliff with no Jarek to catch us.
Sarah gives me a brows-raised look, then sighs and knocks on the gate.
The barrier swings open slowly, creaking all the way.
