A Girl From Nowhere (The Firewall Trilogy #1) - James Maxwell Page 0,151
don’t understand,” Taimin said. He had never felt so helpless.
“With her lifeline broken, her body will no longer breathe,” Rei-kika said. “If she does not return quickly, she will die.”
“Help her!” Taimin cried, staring at the mantorean, trying to read her black, prismatic eyes.
Rei-kika became still and Taimin watched, tensed and expectant. His pulse raced. He turned to Selena again. He could hardly breathe himself. She was so . . . absent. It was as if she was already dead.
The situation became even more hopeless when Rei-kika shook her head. “She is farther than I can reach. All I can sense is her despair.”
“Can’t you go to her?”
“I cannot,” Rei-kika said. “My training is too much a part of me. My lifeline would bring me back.” With a convolution of her limbs, the mantorean sat down beside him. “I cannot go to her.” She was close to him as she stared into his eyes. “But you can.”
“Me?” Taimin shook his head. “I’m no mystic.”
“I am aware of that. Outside your body, you would have no lifeline at all. I can free your awareness. But you would be as Selena is now. You would cease to breathe.”
“You can send me to her?” Taimin felt the faintest kindling of hope.
“No,” Rei-kika said. “All I know is that she is high in the sky, and all I can do is help you leave your body. You have to find her. You must call to her.”
“How would she hear me?” Taimin asked.
“Because, Taimin,” Rei-kika said simply, “she trusts you.”
45
Taimin burst free from his body and immediately knew that something was wrong. He was floating above the sandy floor of the fighting pit, but he sensed that he should return. He knew that he was dying.
He heard Rei-kika’s voice. Steady.
Taimin was terrified but he had to face his fears with determination. I can do this, he said.
Be swift.
He stared up at a sky that was a shade somewhere between dark blue and deepest black. Brilliant diamonds of light glinted down at him, scattered across the heavens. He wanted to go there. He felt himself drifting upward.
He needed to go faster. Rei-kika had said that Selena was high. On cue, the moment he thought about it, his rate of travel increased until he was speeding toward the stars. He looked down. Rei-kika was antlike in size. Soon even Griff became tiny. The oval-shaped floor of sand grew still smaller. The arena itself started to shrink and was swallowed by the surrounding streets and buildings. The city of Zorn became a pale, perfect circle in the plain that enclosed it.
So this was farcasting.
Taimin again gazed up at the sky. The stars appeared just as distant. The next time he glanced down, he couldn’t see the great city of Zorn at all, just a dark, shadowed landscape of deserts and valleys, mountains, and windswept plains.
He focused his attention on traveling as high as he could. The only constant was the cratered moon, which appeared to grow in size.
He felt dizzy. The stars were spinning. He kept the silver circle of the moon in sight and his vision stilled. He knew that looking down would be a bad idea. Even so, it took a great effort to prevent himself from doing it.
He started to call, even as he flew higher. Darkness swallowed him. Stars filled his vision, countless shining holes in the black curtain of night.
Selena? Selena!
Selena was at a place where the sky curved and cast a final blue glow before it met a horizon of perfect darkness. The world was a sphere, she realized, a layered sphere, with breathable air coating the land underneath. She was at the edge of the outer layer. Up above was a void of utter emptiness. It was both forbidding and strangely inviting.
More stars than she had ever seen dominated her vision. The moon was far brighter, clear enough that she could make out jagged circles, like the imprints of huge droplets of water.
She felt drawn to the void. The stars beckoned, beautiful and bright. Something told her that she needed to return, but she wanted to continue her ascent for as long as she could.
She heard a voice.
It was faint, as distant as a voice calling from the bottom of a deep canyon. At first, she wondered if she was really hearing it, but then it became louder. Soon, she heard it more clearly. It was a male voice, calling her name.
Taimin? She spoke with her mind into the darkness.