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24

I was only too glad to be getting out of that wooden room and the wet-animal smell of unconscious gossaks. Especially if this constructed space might collapse any minute.

“Wait,” I said, my hand on the doorknob. “What about the gossaks? We can’t just leave them here to get crushed when this place collapses.”

“Fine,” Vasco said through gritted teeth.

He opened his duffel bag. He also chanted some words I didn’t understand, which I thought was quite unfair.

But the words still worked their magic. The gossaks all got sucked into Vasco’s duffel bag like it was a super-strength vacuum cleaner. If those hulking beasts added an ounce to its weight, Vasco didn’t show it.

He just snapped that duffel bag up again, slung it over his shoulder, and impatiently gestured toward the remaining door.

I ripped it open.

That door led into a tight hallway. Fake dark wood all around, with torches in sconces putting out their yellow light and smelling like day-old fireworks.

I took point.

Brikatika galumphed a few steps behind, his otter-like body taking high steps that looked awkward, but had no trouble keeping up. Possibly because…

Vasco followed right on his heels.

Vasco’s black-and-red plaid flannel shirt had been fully repaired from the tearing I’d given it trying to keep him from getting sucked down that shaft.

No, I hadn’t seen him repair it.

Magellan took rear guard, making sure nothing snuck up on us as we moved down that hall.

And we were moving pretty quickly.

My awareness was stretched out well ahead of me, hunting for traps, enemies, or rooms. And the main thing I kept picking up were little tremors through the energies of the constructed space we moved through.

Tremors that told me this place was going to collapse around us all too soon.

Door ahead on the left…

“Fake.” I kept moving.

Another on the right…

“Trapped. Might be the exit past the trap?”

“No,” Brikatika said, in Dorach. “Any traps before the living area lead only to holding cells.”

“Do you know how far to the living area?”

“The last time I was here, this was all obviously stone. Now it is inobviously stone. I don’t know what else has changed.”

I sighed and kept us moving.

The hallway split in a three-pronged y-shape. I could continue straight ahead, ahead to the right, or ahead to the left.

No. Wait. I couldn’t. The left-hand-route didn’t exist. It was illusion. I could feel the stone behind the appearance.

But why?

Magellan started barking. No words though.

Just fear.

“It’s collapsing,” Vasco said. “Pick one and go.”

No time to send my awareness down those halls. No time to puzzle through the question with what Brikatika remembered from last time.

I could only rely on my instincts. My own desire to survive.

And my guts were telling me to go right.

I started running down the right-hand passage.

Fake door on the left.

Fake door on the right.

Trapped ceiling door.

“Hug the wall!” I yelled and did so as I passed.

A jet of flame shot down. Brikatika cried out in pain, but a glance said he only got singed. Did we have time to…

Magellan barked from the rear guard. The tunnel behind was collapsing even faster now.

No time then.

I picked up the pace.

Finally. A door ahead of us. No hidden doors on the walls or ceiling or floor. No traps between here and there. Just a final door at the end of the hall.

I didn’t trust it for a second. But I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

I hesitated, my hand inches from the doorknob.

Yes, this whole place had been trapped, with an eye toward killing Brikatika. But whoever built it or owned it, hris still wanted to use the space hriself. No way hris wouldn’t leave some kind of escape hatch.

So there had to be a way out.

But that person wouldn’t want to risk Brikatika getting out…

“Running out of hallway back here,” Vasco called urgently.

Clarity, thanks to a sudden influx of memory.

Some doors opened to two places.

I started laughing, which got all three of my companions swearing at me.

I didn’t have time for them though. Especially not now that I could hear the grind of river stone reasserting itself into the constructed space behind us.

I played my awareness not just along the door itself, but along the doorjamb, the knob, the hinges. I sought a connection that wouldn’t be obvious.

“Scott.” Vasco sounded worried, but I didn’t have time for him.

There.

A tiny filament of green energies, tucked inside a swirl of yellow and blue. A vague sense of low thrum among the crackling of the other tones. The hint of a honey smell inside a stronger fragrance of peanut butter.

That was all the hint I could find of what I was looking for.

It was enough.

I triggered the hidden option in the door. Opened it wide.

And just like that, I was cold, wet, and surrounded by the Multnomah Channel.

But I was out of that constructed space.

Brikatika and Vasco came through next, at the same time, and Magellan followed only a moment behind.

All four of us swam for the surface. Came out onto the shore of Sauvie Island.

Dark brown sand and lots of rocks. Scrub grass no more than a dozen feet away, and not much of it between us and the nearest road.

Big, rusty truck rattled past on that road. Sounded like it was slowly murdering its muffler, and it smelled as though it were burning more oil than gas, but neither the truck nor the driver paid us any mind.

The sun was high overhead. Just how long had we been inside that rock?

The rumble of my stomach insisted that we had been in there far too long, and that my Denver omelet breakfast might as well have been eaten during the last ice age.

The warmth of that sun was welcome, though, after the wet cold of the river. Especially with a decent breeze adding a little chill.

Now that I was aware of my temperature tolerance though, I noticed that, after the initial shock, the cold from the Willamette didn’t bother me as much as I would have expected.

I was, however, soaking wet again.

I turned to say something. Not sure I recall exactly what. Possibly a complaint about being wet. I’d like to think I was more likely to have said something about what we were going to do next.

Whatever I was thinking, I didn’t get to say it. Soon as I turned, Vasco had a portal open.

Red as a neon “open” sign, this portal was around its rim. And that same red light sort of … fluttered in towards its middle, through a field of black. It smelled of good, greasy hamburgers and salty fries, and it sounded like the clattering of dishware.

I didn’t even ask where the portal led. I just stepped through, confident it was leading someplace safe, and that Vasco, Brikatika and Magellan would follow.

For once, the sensory cues of a portal suited the destination.

I was standing in a diner.

No. Not just any diner.

I was standing in The Porthole.

I’d never been to The Porthole, of course. But every instructor had raved about it. I recognized it from their descriptions alone.

First, the smell. Rich, dark coffee. Smelled high quality. I mean, I didn’t even drink coffee, but this smell had me reconsidering that policy.

I know. It didn’t smell like its portal had. But so far as I could tell, no place really did.

Anyway, the floor was tiled in this rainbow swirl pattern that really, should have been obnoxious. But it was done in dim enough shades that it didn’t overpower the eye.

The ceiling and walls had the look and texture of lunar rock. Which made perfect sense to me, because this particular diner was inside the moon.

No. I don’t know how they made it habitable. But if I had to guess, I’d call it magic and Vasco’d call it “Locksmith skills.” Likely skills related to those that were used to create space inside a physical object.

Sure would have helped if my memories had kicked in there, but the related skills felt like they were beyond my training.

Too bad. Wouldn’t have sucked to add a room to my apartment.

The Porthole was decorated in a nautical theme. All over the walls were images of boats and sailing. Rigging hung along the ceiling, as well as broken oars long enough to have been used on old Viking vessels.

The tabletops were fashioned from old shipping barrels, but wide enough to seat eight.

And they had seating accommodations to handle any of the species I’d seen, and plenty I hadn’t met yet. I knew that, even though I didn’t see any of those odd accommodations at the moment.

The chairs I could see looked like the kind I’d expect to see on a film set, but with netting instead of cloth for the seat and seatback.

There was also a counter that looked as though it had been cobbled together from old figureheads. And I don’t just mean mermaids and monarchs. Squids, sharks, lizardfolk — all manners of figureheads had given their lives to have their tops flattened and lacquered into The Porthole’s counter.

Behind the counter right now was a hotheaded little guy named Willy Pete. Wasn’t his real name, but then no leprechauns went by their real names.

Willy Pete got his handle because his temper was said to be hot as white phosphorous. Though he claimed it was because his smile was that bright.

Had the kind of blue-black skin that usually suggested African heritage. But Willy Pete was definitely a leprechaun, and stood no taller than my waist. He dressed in black leather and spikes, like he’d walked off the set of an old 80s heavy metal video. Wore his hair in a big cloud of tight red curls.

A sprinkling of Locksmiths were having their lunches, but I had no attention for them. Now that I knew where I was, and that we weren’t in immediate danger, I turned back to the entrance.

The Porthole had no front door. Just a permanent portal. Open right now, with its fluttering of red energies, though when it closed I knew it would just look like a smooth, round spot in the lunar wall.

Vasco, Magellan, and Brikatika came through the portal.

The portal closed behind them.

Sure enough, smooth, round lunar wall where the portal had been.

“Grab a table anywhere,” Willy Pete called over, his big smile in place. “Geri’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Can we use the back room?” Vasco called back. “We need some privacy. Oh, and we may have to leave in a hurry.”

That wiped the smile off Willy Pete’s face. He raised a threatening finger.

“Do not make a mess back there.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Vasco assured him, and led Brikatika the right direction, around to the left of the counter, through an unpopulated section of tables.

Magellan’s tail was already going a mile-a-minute as he followed, likely anticipating table scraps.

I checked the portal again — still closed — and then fell into rear-guard position.

I knew we needed the information we were about to get from Brikatika. I knew we would probably have to act on it in a hurry.

But I did hope I got to eat first. This place had a great rep. And I was starving.

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