Eternity Gate

  ‘I cannot allow it,’ Rhun insisted. ‘I cannot in good conscience save my people, if this is the cost.’

  ‘The choice is not yours to make,’ she gently reminded him. ‘Our only worry is Wu Geng … the one you call Khalid.’

  Rhun nodded, understanding her concern.

  ‘For thirty years, while you were collecting the rest of your timekeepers from among the Zhou, you left your one-time nemesis in our care. During that time we were the compassionate mentor Wu Geng has needed and never had. Our pupil has spiritually advanced beyond expectation under our guidance and we worry he will not cope well with the forthcoming events.’

  Dorje Pema always referred to herself in the plural as she was still psychically in contact with all her crew mates in stasis and was constantly guided by them. She also had an intuitive link to all the local offspring of her people that roamed the Earth in animal-human were-forms, even though they were of this planet’s soul-group and not her own. The soul-minds of her people who had taken these forms had long ago committed their bodies to stasis to add their light to the compassion shield, or had perished before they could join their crew mates in their vigil.

  ‘We ask that you will protect our student from his own grief in the wake of this event.’ Dorje Pema held Rhun’s gaze with her intense expression of appeal. ‘It is all we ask in return for this service.’

  Rhun was disturbed by her terminology. ‘This is far more than a service —’

  ‘Promise us,’ she politely insisted, both eyebrows raised in challenge and finality.

  Rhun gave a heavy exhalation, but his grief still caught in his throat and made it ache. ‘I wish I’d never told you what happened last time I screwed up, then none of this would be happening.’

  ‘Promise us.’

  ‘There has to be another way?’

  ‘There is none,’ she stated. ‘Not without risk to your people.’

  Rhun shook his head, unable to believe where circumstance had led them. ‘I only ever wanted to get you home … not this —’

  ‘This is the fastest route home for us. Agree to our terms, this is our wish, we are resolved.’

  Rhun hated that the Dropa were so at peace with this; he hated that his will was always met at such a great cost to others. ‘Of course,’ he bowed his head with the guilt he felt, unable to look her in the eye. ‘I will gladly comply with any request you make of me.’

  ‘We have only this one.’

  The serenity in her voice urged Rhun to look at her, and once he saw the compassion in her eyes, his sadness welled and tears trickled down the side of his face in silent protest. ‘I shall treat Khalid as my own brother.’

  Dorje Pema struggled to repress a smile, despite the seriousness of the moment. ‘Is that supposed to reassure us, timekeeper? We have seen you with your semi-etheric brother and your relationship with the Lord of the Otherworld is … not as supportive as we would ideally like for our pupil.’

  Rhun cracked his first smile of the day, conceding her point. ‘Perhaps you should make this request of someone who is not quite such a screw-up?’

  ‘You are the only one among your crew who does not hold a karmic grudge against Khalid,’ she explained, ‘and you are the one who will profit most greatly from our resolve.’

  The reminder was wounding, and Rhun bowed his head again to suck up his own remorse, then looked Dorje Pema in the eyes. ‘I will do as you ask to the very best of my ability.’ He couldn’t stop the silent flow of tears, but squeezed his eyes tight in the hope of draining the sorrow from them.

  ‘Did it ever occur to you that this is what was always meant to happen? Perhaps we were never meant to return to our planet of origin?’ She encouraged him to let go of his judgements, but Rhun could not.

  ‘If I had not recruited my brother to fetch the spare parts you needed to mend your spacecraft, you would have just continued on as you have —’

  ‘Alone.’ Her voice betrayed the great burden this was. ‘For what? For whom? These bodies have served us well through the eternity we have spent stranded on this remote little planet, but they are not of our people. We would look as alien to them as you once looked to us. Our spirit is our connection to our soul-mind … free us from form and we will be home.’

  As she made it sound like he was doing the Dropa a great favour, some of Rhun’s heaviness lifted. ‘But we are still changing causality?’

  ‘You sound so certain.’ Her tone implied she begged to differ. ‘But if it hadn’t been the repairs to our ship that took our light-shield down, a rodent chewing through the wrong circuit could have caused the same failure. Whatever the case was, however long it took to come about, we all know this ship ends up in this creature’s possession in the end. You are only speeding up the inevitable. Thus you are merely the instrument of cosmic timing.’

  ‘My brother disagrees.’ Rhun saw her point, but doubted Avery would share their view.

  Dorje Pema smiled at this; Rhun and his brother seldom saw eye to eye on any matter. ‘With all due respect to the Lord of the Otherworld, he dwells in an etheric realm where time is simultaneous. What could he know about physical world causality?’

  Her view made Rhun grin a moment; it was so rare someone took his side over his semi-divine brother’s. ‘Well, Avery sees the result of my most recent decisions and, not liking what he sees, has ruled me to be a complete incompetent.’

  ‘And you believe him,’ Dorje Pema lectured. ‘Even though all these brilliant souls have banded behind you to aid your cause?’

  Rhun was flattered by what she was implying, but she had her facts wrong. ‘The timekeepers, well most of them, were partly responsible for my debacle, so I think they feel obliged to help me sort it.’

  ‘There you go, this is not all your burden to bear.’ Dorje Pema could not repress her amusement at this point, and gave a little chuckle. ‘Clearly others have more faith in you and your cause, than you do.’

  ‘No,’ Rhun cracked an uncomfortable smile. ‘I have the utmost faith in my cause —’

  ‘Then do what must be done, and trust that all is as it should be.’ Dorje Pema nodded her head once, to drive home her point. ‘If you waver in your conviction, your foe will surely prevail, for he will certainly never waver in his quest and then you will truly have something to feel sorry about.’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened last time,’ Rhun justified his hesitancy.

  ‘But this time we are prepared,’ she concluded. ‘And can turn the tide of this inter-time war to our favour.’

  Rhun struggled to dispel his lingering doubts.

  ‘We shall program the light-shield to power down over the course of the next seven days. That ought to get the creature’s attention,’ Pema said.

  ‘That is why there were so many more of them than I remembered,’ Rhun remarked. ‘We gave Dragonface more notice to gather his minions.’

  ‘The reptilians can move swiftly and have subterranean paths all over the world that they can follow to speed their travels.’ Dorje Pema’s people had researched their enemy well. ‘We want to make sure we get them all.’

  As Rhun’s chair returned to a fully upright position, he nodded to agree, although his heart was still not at peace.

  ‘Then you too can go home, and have a home worth going home to.’ She urged him to think of that. ‘We all win.’

  ‘That is how it always looks in the planning stages.’ Rhun stood and stepped into the outer chamber. ‘But causality is an unpredictable mother f—’ He stopped himself cussing and rephrased. ‘It’s very unpredictable. I know from experience that there is always a price to pay, somewhere down the track.’

  The Dropa woman raised both eyebrows in resolve. ‘That will be your problem, not ours, timekeeper.’

  ‘It is always my problem!’ Rhun threw his hands up.

  ‘Well, as an immortal time traveller, what did you expect?’ She cracked a smile at his complaints. ‘One more grumble out of you and we are sticking you back in the e
gg,’ the tiny woman threatened and Rhun found his humour.

  ‘Yes please!’ He headed back towards the pod.

  ‘Do not try our patience, timekeeper,’ she pointed him towards the door and his debrief. ‘Time for you to inform the others of our intention whilst we reprogram the shield.’

  She said this casually, as if it were only an electrical charge that she was shutting off. The fact was Dorje Pema would be programming her ship to shut off a stasis unit, containing one of her fellow crew members, each hour between now and the end of the event countdown. Thus one by one the Dropa would finally die and return to their soul-group and their true evolutionary scheme.

  Rhun was reliving this moment for a second time, and he was thankful to have the support of the timekeepers during this round, as his first solo romp through the era had been a complete disaster. Most of the crew already knew the story of the first time Rhun visited ancient Zhou, lost the time chariot to Dragonface, and caused the extinction of the Chosen on Kila — who were supposedly immortal.

  Whilst Dragonface was time-hopping, Rhun had been stranded in ancient China and had been found and taken to Dorje Pema. With the help of her egg she restored his health, but could not restore the immortality that Dragonface had taken from him with a DNA-destroying weapon. It was when Rhun learned that the Dropa were unable to source the material needed for repairs to their craft that he first wished his otherworldly brother was around to aid them, and inadvertently summoned his brother forth. Avery had been dragged back to the etheric realms of the Earth and kept there by his elemental dominions to protect him from falling victim to the same fate as his immortal kindred on Kila. Even though Rhun was residing in a time zone long before either of them were born, the Otherworld was timeless, and as long as Avery was Lord of the Otherworld, he could be summoned forth into the physical realm from anywhere — in any universe. But due to the disaster on Kila his elementals would not allow Avery to respond to any summons from the Esh-mah system to which Kila belonged. Upon learning of Dorje Pema’s plight, Avery, having access to the sub-planes of every part of creation, was happy to have his elemental dominions produce the material the Dropa required. Whilst Dorje Pema set about repairing her craft, Avery assisted Rhun to steal back the time chariot.

  At that time they did not suspect Dragonface was still monitoring the Dropa ship so closely, but in the time it took to retrieve the chariot, the spaceship was stolen. Avery had attempted to will himself after the vessel and Dorje Pema, but it was protected by the reptilians’ dark magic. And despite the sad turn of events, Avery refused to allow Rhun to screw around with time and causality any further.

  Nobody really knew how Dragonface had managed to take the ship. The theory was that during the install, the back-up generator used to maintain the light-shield during the repairs had failed, whereupon all the bodies sustaining the light-shield would have perished. With the protective barrier gone, the ship would have been an easy target for the reptilians.

  Now Dorje Pema was offering to just give the reptilians what they had lusted after for so long, knowing they would not refuse the opportunity. But when the craft took off this time, it would be wired to explode once it reached a safe distance from the Earth.

  ‘But without Dorje Pema they will never be able to launch.’ Khalid was bemused for he was one of the few crew who had not caught wind of any of this before now.

  Khalid was a timekeeper, in so far as he could shift his consciousness through time and incarnations as the rest of the old AMIE crew could, but he had never been on the AMIE project or been recruited by Taren Lennox — in fact they’d been arch-enemies. Khalid was caught up in events and had then invited himself along on their time quest, so he was rarely made privy to information before he had to be.

  ‘That is why,’ Rhun felt a large lump welling in his throat again, ‘Dorje Pema intends to stay with the craft and leave with the reptilians.’

  ‘No!’ Khalid strongly objected. His dark eyes gazed around the room and it was plain that everyone was devastated by the news. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘It was not my choice.’ Rhun struggled to explain what he could not himself fully condone.

  ‘I could shift form into Dorje Pema, and then teleport out of there before the ship blows!’ Huxin, their female shapeshifter, volunteered.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ Hudan, her twin sister, agreed.

  Huxin and Hudan had been twin sisters during their stint in ancient Zhou, and although they were twins they could not have been more different, both in appearance and attitude. Perhaps this was because, in their previous universe, they had been fierce rivals who became staunch allies. The soul currently inhabiting the body of Huxin was once Jazmay Cardea, a Valourean warrior, shapeshifter and timekeeper, whose talents extended far beyond those of the were-tiger she’d been during her life in ancient Zhou. Her twin, Hudan, was none other than Taren Lennox, the original timekeeper and founder of this time- and incarnation-hopping crew. During her future lifetimes in this universe, Rhun had also known Hudan as Tory Alexander; mother to both himself and Avery.

  As much as Rhun hated to question these women, he had to. ‘I feel you are all missing the point.’

  ‘Which is?’ Hudan queried, eyebrows raised and ready to be enlightened.

  ‘It is Dorje Pema’s desire to perish along with the rest of her crew,’ Rhun stated. ‘She does not wish to continue to live alone.’

  ‘She would not be alone,’ Khalid appealed, referring to everyone present.

  ‘She isn’t human,’ Song pointed out.

  ‘Dorje Pema is a superior form of human.’ Khalid took offence to Song’s tone. ‘You cannot let her do this!’

  Rhun was already resolved, and clearly Khalid saw this on his face.

  ‘Tell me,’ Khalid attempted to rein in his frustration, ‘I did not spend thirty years learning the path of the righteous just to discover you are fucking bastards who only care about what will serve your ultimate purpose!’

  Rhun understood his viewpoint perfectly, but his hands were tied, he had given his word to the Dropa. ‘Dorje Pema said that she feared you might protest her decision —’

  ‘Damn right I protest!’ Khalid was yelling now and there would be no pacifying him.

  ‘It’s too late to alter the plan.’ Rhun spoke up over him, but kept a civil tone. ‘Dorje Pema has already begun the countdown towards the light-shield’s total collapse, one week from now.’ Although Khalid was winded by the news, Rhun looked back to the group to get through the brief. ‘So, take care, everyone, the egg will also be incapacitated … if you get injured now, seek Fen.’

  ‘Bye, bye eternal youth.’ Huxin was fond of the egg for restoring her mind and body to what it had been in her prime; many of the team were grateful for that.

  ‘Huxin!’ Hudan frowned. ‘We can survive!’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Huxin uttered under her breath, arms folded. ‘You died young.’

  ‘The day after I was wed!’ Hudan begged to differ on the luck factor.

  ‘Girls! Please.’ Rhun would miss the remedial effects of the regeneration pod too, but he felt this was hardly the moment to discuss it. He looked to their young healer, crouched beside Ling Hu, the white tigress, who accompanied him everywhere. ‘You are our last defence against death now, Fen.’

  ‘I shall do my best to keep us all alive,’ he reassured with a warm smile that had no trace of cockiness behind it — Fen was a humble, happy soul.

  Not only did Fen Gong heal humans, he could grow anything and exert his emotional states of being over others. His love and compassion could heal, his hatred could kill — his counterpart incarnation on the AMIE crew, Ringbalin Malachi, had been able to do the same. Back in that other universe, he was the molecular biologist who had designed and maintained the AMIE project’s greenhouse in space. At present Ringbalin’s soul-mind was still residing in his Zhou incarnation Wu Fen Gong, who was slight in build, as Ringbalin had been, and was so pretty and effeminate
he’d passed for a female for the first seventeen years of his life.

  ‘You people are unbelievable.’ Khalid was stunned by the acceptance around him. ‘I am not going to lose the only person I ever cared about!’ Khalid vanished from their midst — no doubt he had teleported straight to Dorje Pema. Khalid would have no more success dissuading her than Rhun had.

  ‘Do you think I should go after him?’ Fen could forcibly pacify their rogue crew mate.

  ‘No, let him go,’ Dan spoke up finally — the one-time captain of AMIE had been very quiet during this brief. ‘No one can handle Khalid better than Dorje Pema herself. She will help him see reason.’

  Up until recently, Dan had been known as Zhou Gong — the first sage of China, who had aided his older brother, Ji Fa, to overthrow the long reign of many ruthless Shang emperors and unite China. Prior to his incarnation jump into ancient Zhou, Dan was known as Lucian Gervaise, captain and creator of the AMIE project. In both those lives, and all those incarnations before them, he’d been the husband and soul mate of Taren Lennox, AKA Jiang Hudan, Tory Alexander — the list went on.

  Beside Dan sat his Zhou brother Shi — the male were-tiger of the crew — who was also being very quiet.

  Shi had never been a very keen leader, despite being Grand Protector of half of China during Ji Song’s time as King. Shi was a warrior, and always had been. Back on Kila he worked for KEPA, Kila Environmental Protection Agency, the organisation that protected the wildlife of their planet from being poached or hunted. But in the universe parallel, where the timekeepers first stemmed from, he was known as Yasper Ronan, AIME’s head of security. In that incarnation and the one he’d just lived through in Zhou, he was husband and soul mate of Jazmay Cardea, AKA Jiang Huxin, and they too had a history together dating back to the dawn of time.

  Everyone on the crew had such a soul they were attached to, but most had left their soul mates behind in their universe of origin. Due to various unforeseeable events along their journey through time and space, many of them were now battling time and causality to see their significant other again, Rhun and his otherworldly brother included.