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My mind flooded with all the mathematics that made this thing work. My brain hit maximum capacity and tried to collapse like a small child being assailed by twenty happy puppies.
Focus.
I extended my ribbons along the leystone, descending into the concentric nonagons like a borescope. The stars pushed back. I followed the woven path farther, farther,so far, pulling and weaving and noodling…
Just a glimpse, I just needed a glimpse…
There.
My brain was too overwhelmed to categorize or explain the sensation, but it recognized it: that one, right there. The leystone on Homeworld still existed.
The shock and relief dropped me back into Lemuria. I collapsed into a pile of noodle on the floor.
Flashes of wild color and lights sparkled through my brain as a thousand thoughts paraded through the gray matter. The guys spoke to me, but I felt the vibrations of that along my tethers. My brain couldn’t even processsomeone is talking to me, much less their words.
Homeworld was within reach.
Literally.
Quivers and shivers rattled my scales. Trembling set in.
Auryn’s touch pusheddown, and it baked me like sunlight on a beach. It was met with Akoni’s touch, stroking the itchy spot between my wings, and finally Keon, who laid down next to me on the stones and did his best to hug my noodle puddle. He was whispering something while Akoni trilled. The words didn’t make sense, but they felt lovely along my tethers.
The cosmos rotated. The world waited.
The storm in my brain ebbed enough I could raise my head. Then I let go of my scales and flipped back into human form.
The crush of sensations eased, but theholy shit, what did I just seein my brain continued.
And the cosmos was still there, rotating lazily.
“Easy,” Auryn was saying as I moved to get off the ground.
I stumbled. Keon grabbed me. “Let’snotfall through the Gate.”
Thatwouldbe bad. I loved to fly. Did not so much like the eternal uncontrolled descent into non-existent terrain.
“It’s there,” I said, breathless and still quivering all over.
“What’s there?” Keon asked.
“Homeworld’s Gate. It’s there. It’sstill there. It doesn’t have power, but I can get it open from this side. We did it, guys. Wedidit.”
Keon swept me up in an embrace and crushed me to him with a sound like a sob.
I cried a year’s worth of tears.
Thirty
After everything, opening the Gate had been equal parts magnificent accomplishment and totally underwhelming. It’d taken six hours from start to finish.
My brain was mush, but I managed to hold it together long enough to close the Gate. There were a few different ways to close the Gate, but without the external housing, there were only two ways. Neither were especially elegant or godlike.
Yanking the core was fast, instant, easy, and anyone could do it. The trade off? The Gate crashed hard.Hard. Snipping the strings so the Gate spun down on its own was preferred if there was a Chaos dragon available and able to stick their ribbons in the cosmic blender. The Gate would remain open for a brief period, and after that, simply became a black rotating disc similar to the portal entry points while residual power slowly bled off.
I stuck my ribbons in the cosmic blender, then informed the guys I had a hell of a hangover and needed to sleep it off.
Then I proceeded to do just that.
