I didn’t let the gate close behind me. Instead, the instant my foot touched the ground, I broke into a run, heading for one of the tunnels leading out of the central chamber. I could feel the strain of holding the gate open mount quickly, and as I reached the tunnel, the pressure became unbearable. I let go and felt the gate snap closed. I would have maybe half a minute before the two realms fell out of sync, at which point Talisid would arrive.
At which point things would get complicated.
I’d spent a long time setting this up, and part of the reason it had taken me so long was to make sure that it wouldn’t be at all obvious what was really going on. So I should probably take a moment to explain.
Deep shadow realms are similar to shadow realms: small pocket realities that can only be accessed via gate magic. They differ from shadow realms in several ways. The first big difference is that deep shadow realms can only be accessed via other shadow realms, and the paths by which you can reach them shift. When I’d first visited this deep shadow realm, the only way to reach it had been via the Hollow. That path had since broken. This meant that for the Council mages to reach me, they’d have to go from our world, to Hyperborea, to here. And likewise, to get back home, I’d have to go through Hyperborea first.
The second thing about deep shadow realms is that their laws of reality can be very different from ours. Some have variable gravity, or mutable terrain. This particular deep shadow realm had an altered flow of time: an hour spent here was the equivalent of days or weeks in our world. The exact ratio waxed and waned, depending on how metaphysically “close” the deep shadow realm was. At the moment, based on my tests, the ratio was around 70:1, meaning that for each minute I spent in here, an hour and ten minutes would elapse at home.
Hence why I’d been in such a hurry to get away from the entry chamber. The Council doesn’t have any great expertise with deep shadow realms, and Talisid and the rest of the Council team would certainly take precautions before entering. But the time dilation meant that from my perspective, even the most exhaustive checks would be finished very fast. It was hard to use my divination here, but my best guess was that I had a minute at most.
Gate spells briefly equalised the passage of time between the two realms, but not for long. Once Talisid and his group stepped through, the ratio would snap back, and time would continue passing seventy times faster than in our world. Talisid and the others shouldn’t notice anything, at least not until they got back. I hadn’t.
The deep shadow realm felt strange, alien. My divination showed me flashes of futures, chaotic and bizarre. It would be dangerous to stay here for long, dangerous to draw the attention of whatever inhabited this place. I could feel the dreamstone stirring as I ran, pulsing to some inaudible frequency. It was here that I’d found the crystal, taking it from a larger outgrowth. There had been other things there too, ones that weren’t crystals, who had worn faces and spoken to me. The experience had shaken me, and I’d walked away intending never to come back. It was only a year later that a chance remark of Arachne’s had set me thinking about a way to use the time dilation to my advantage.
I’d come up with something that I was pretty sure would work, but it was dependent on two things. First, I was betting that this time, the Council wasn’t going to underestimate me or Anne. And second, I was betting that they really, really wanted to get rid of us.
From behind me, I felt the pulse of gate magic. I slowed down and took out my communicator. “Talisid,” I said once I’d caught my breath. “You took your time.”
“We had to take precautions,” Talisid replied.
“Yes,” I said, “I noticed it took a whole minute for you to go through the gate into Hyperborea.”
“As I said. Precautions.”
“So I see.”
I’d arrived in a small, curving corridor. From here I’d be able to use the dreamstone to gate back to Hyperborea, but if I did that now, there was too high a chance that I’d be detected. I needed a better head start. I waited, looking down at the communicator, feeling the futures flicker.
“So,” Talisid said. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“To make the trade.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Ready as you are.” I paused. “Why did you agree to that last demand, Talisid?”
“I’m sorry?”
“For me to be put back on the Junior Council.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“A truce was on the table,” I said. “Maybe. But getting my seat back? After what happened with Sal Sarque? Levistus would never agree to that. Bahamus would never agree to that. Neither would Alma, neither would Druss.”
“I am not fully privy to Senior Council discussions, but regardless of how they came to it, they have agreed on this exchange.”
“Yes,” I said. “An exchange that would put me and Anne and Levistus’s synthetic intelligence all in the same place at the same time.”
“Verus, I understand that you have reason to be cautious,” Talisid said. “But we’ve abided by all the terms of our agreement. I even elected to bring two members of the Council security forces, rather than Keepers, in a show of good faith.”
“I’d say you brought considerably more than two people.”
Through the communicator, I heard Talisid sigh. “I brought two, Verus. Only two. I know you’re using your divination magic to watch us. Go ahead and observe. If you like, have Mage Walker employ her lifesight. No matter what spells you employ, what sensory magic you use, they’ll tell you the same thing. There are only three of us here.”
“I already used my divination,” I said. “Back when you entered Hyperborea. And you’re right. As far as I could see, there were only three of you.”
“So we’re agreed?”
“Not quite,” I said. “Why did you hold the gate open for one minute?”
“As I said, we were ensuring that it was safe.”
“So, funny story,” I said. “Remember back when I was a journeyman Keeper? None of the other Keepers were willing to work with me, so I had nothing to do but sit in my office all day. So one of the things I did to pass the time was read. I read the whole Order of the Star doctrine manual cover to cover.”
“Good grief, really? Even most Keepers don’t read that thing.”
“It was pretty boring. But it was interesting seeing where a lot of Council habits come from. Like, you know how Keepers will send someone through a gate the instant it opens? If it’s dangerous, they might send a security man first, but they always follow through right after. It turns out that the doctrine manual says that Council operatives should make a point of keeping gate exposure as low as possible. And it’s a funny thing, but everyone in the Council follows it without thinking. From open to close, they usually keep a gate running no more than fifteen seconds.”