This was so weird. Well, okay, the entire thing was weird, all of it. I was somewhere in ancient Egypt trying to get to a time rift so I could throw myself through it in order to stop that dragon energy from empowering the Fomorians and turning them into an even more unstoppable empire. But then I had run into the Olympians, claimed I was one of their children from the future and convinced them I was telling the truth by using the ghost of one of them (who was still alive in this time), just before we were all scattered and a bunch of buildings from across the timeline started appearing all over the place, the Olympus itself was taken apart into all its different pieces, and now I was being led across the distorted landscape by Sariel and a fake Seosten who was actually a human from a world that had been created by a sapient magic spell who saw Sariel herself as its mother.

  All of that was weird enough on its own. And I had definitely left a little bit out of my little mental recap. But in this case, the specific weird thing was Sariel herself. She seemed so much younger and less sure of herself than I was accustomed to. It wasn't even so much exactly what she said or what she did as how she did it. I couldn't really explain it very well even to myself, but I just kept getting the impression that she wasn't nearly the same person I knew.

  Which, well, was really to be expected. Why would she be exactly the same thousands of years before I first met her? She had been through a lot since then. Or rather, since now. At this point, I was pretty sure she was only around a hundred years old, or something like that. The way her people grew, that was still just a young adult, if even that.

  It was her movements. That was part of it. She still had her power, obviously, but she seemed less certain of it, less practiced, less perfect. It was like part of her kept second-guessing what her power wanted her to do, how it wanted her to move. Once in a while, she would relax into it and move the way I remembered the older Sariel moving, with that perfect grace. But then she would overthink it and try to correct her motion.

  Oh yeah, and speaking of running, we were moving damn fast. For once, I didn't have to slow myself down to let others keep up. I was capable of easily running as fast as a car (while a ghost pantomimed at me as though he was the one using some sort of power to let me move like that), and Cassiel had their paint. Specifically, when they put green on themself and Sariel, it made them faster. Between that and judicious use of their own Seosten boosts, the pair were able to keep up with me.

  So, we raced across the landscape together, trying our best to ignore everything in our way as much as possible. I could see dozens of pieces of architecture from every possible time. And all I could think about was just how easily something could appear that would completely break the timeline if one of these people saw it.

  Just focus on fixing the immediate problem, Story advised, sounding out of breath. We can worry about things like that later. Right now, all that matters is getting to that rift to make all this go back to the way it was. She paused briefly before adding in a weaker voice, And we do think that going through the rift is going to put all this back the way it was, right?

  A shudder ran through me at the thought that we might be wrong about that. I don't know, but I don't have anything better, do you? I don't even know if this was just something about the rift itself. Do all the rifts do this shit? Are all those other versions of me dealing with pieces of the timeline being dragged there? Or did someone here manage to break the rift even more than it already was somehow?

  Story sounded like she was grimacing. Is it just me, or is it hard to know which option is worse? If this is happening everywhere-- I mean everywhen, at all the rifts, that could be doing even more damage to the timeline. It could break reality or something. Not to mention the bigger risk of someone seeing the wrong thing.

  I mentally nodded. But if it's all specific to this rift, it means someone or something must have done something to it. And I'm not sure we want to run into whoever it was that could affect the rift like that.

  Both of us fell silent then, contemplating just how bad either option could be. Whatever was actually happening here, I really felt like we were in trouble. Part of me was still clinging to the hope that I could fix all of it just by getting to the rift and jumping through it. Wouldn't that be nice? If I could put all of this back the way it was supposed to be just by stepping through the rift and being done with it, I would give reality itself a cookie. A thousand cookies. Yes, honestly, if reality would throw me a bone and make it that simple, I would bake it a thousand cookies.

  That was the promise that was running through my mind when, naturally, we ran into another complication. It was like reality itself was spitting on my promise to give it cookies. Which was fair, considering how bad of a cook I was. They would probably be terrible cookies.

  Specifically, all three of us had to stop abruptly thanks to the giant hole in the ground. Yeah, a hole. Ahead of us was a deep chasm that looked very unnatural, like some sort of giant knife had just been driven down into the ground by an unholy giant. The thing was a good thirty feet across, stretched on for a hundred yards or so in both directions, and looked to be like a thousand feet deep.

  Worse, there was some sort of machinery inside that was projecting what looked a lot like a forcefield to block the way across. It was a shimmering red energy field that I really didn't want to risk touching.

  Sariel skidded to a halt and took that whole thing in while Cassiel and I did the same. A confused grimace crossed the woman's face. “This wasn't here before. The landscape is changing again. It keeps shifting. How far in the future is this from?”

  It took me a second to realize that she was actually asking me. Oh right, because I was the one from the future.

  Blinking at the strange ravine with the shield generator, I offered a helpless shrug. “Assuming that everything we're seeing is just from this planet, it’s not tech native to humans. But if it’s something our people or another species brought here, it could be from any time. But I don't recognize it.”

  For a moment, it looked like she wanted to ask a follow-up question or ten. Which just sent a rush of panic through me that I had said the wrong thing already. She couldn't take too much out of me saying that this tech could have come from any time, could she? I’d even remembered to refer to Seosten as ‘our people.’

  But rather than pursue that, Sariel seemed to visibly shake it off as she turned back to start running along the side of the crevice. “We'll go around, I can still find my way back to the pyramid.”

  Again, it sounded and looked like the Sariel I knew. But her voice was less certain. She didn't sound quite as confident in what she was saying. It was almost like she felt awkward taking the lead, like she expected someone to cut in and take over for her any moment.

  In any case, going around this shield-covered ravine was a good idea. It wasn't that long. We could go around and then just continue on our way, maybe losing a few seconds, considering how quickly we could run. Cassiel had given themself and Sariel a new shot of green paint so they could keep running. This was only a minor interruption, and I didn’t even have to try to teleport us.

  Or rather, it should have been a minor interruption. Sariel’s plans to go around it should have been a good idea. But the three of us had barely taken a few steps along the edge before the chasm apparently decided we weren't paying enough attention to it. The forcefield switched from that red energy to blue. And the next thing we knew, something was grabbing hold of us. It was an invisible force, like gravity or something, projected from the shield. Whatever it was, we were suddenly yanked off our feet and pulled right into the middle of the chasm. I had time to yelp before I was thrown upside down so I could see the ground a good thousand feet below. Then the field switched angles and suddenly I was falling. No, I wasn't just falling, I was being pushed toward the ground. The others were in the same position. All three of us had been yanked out into the middle of the crevice and were now being forcefully pushed toward the ground far, far below. It was like a huge hand was on my back and kept shoving me down through the air.

  Well obviously, the first thing I tried was freezing my clothes to stop my descent. Which worked, sort of. But it also hurt like hell. I was still being pushed down, even as my clothes froze like that. I was being crushed between the force pushing on me and the immovable objects that were my clothes. Any second now, my bones were going to start breaking. Oh yeah, and I didn't even have more than a second or two before the others would slam into the ground. Both Cassiel and Sariel were covered in yellow, which apparently slowed them down a bit, but they were still being forced that way. We all had a brief moment to try to do something. But what? It felt like whatever was pushing on us had the strength of hundreds of people. I could feel myself being crushed. It sent sharp shocks of pain through me, making it even harder to think than it already had been.

  It was Story who saved the day. The moment I had that thought about it feeling like there were hundreds of hands pushing down on me, she realized exactly how to counter that.

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  With ghosts, of course. She used our necromancy power to summon all the ghosts that we could. Dozens of them appeared around the three of us. Some of them helped hold us up, moving under us to catch our falling forms as Necromantic energy was pushed into them. Others put themselves over us, between our bodies and that strange, powerful energy that was pushing us down. They managed to push the energy up, acting as shields between it and our fleshy parts. I could already feel the force that was pushing down on them starting to break through the energy they had. They were solid for now, but it was taking everything just to stay solid for those few seconds, given the sheer force that was pushing down on them.

  But they wouldn't have to last for long. Because the other thing that Story did was summon a very familiar coffin. Usually, the thing came flying down out of the sky and cracked open upon impact. This time, it appeared next to us and went flying sideways into the wall of the chasm. The coffin broke apart, half of the thing embedding itself into the rock wall, and Penny Dreadful’s tiny golem form appeared on the edge of it.

  She didn't waste a second, already flinging herself toward the nearest of many pieces of machinery that were scattered through this ravine. Realizing what she was doing, I pushed all the power I could into her. It was scary, knowing that I wouldn't have enough left to reinforce the ghosts if it took her too long to do her thing. But on the other hand, if she took too long, we were going to be crushed and have our broken bodies flung to the bottom of the place anyway. So I might as well go all in and give her all the strength she needed.

  Just like that, Penny Dreadful hit that machinery and started ripping it apart as quickly as she could. She tore into all the electronics, bounding from piece to piece throughout the canyon as she did every bit of damage she could. She was roaring and hissing, snarling like a vicious animal as she gleefully ripped everything apart like a little kid breaking a bunch of lego buildings.

  It worked. Thank God, it actually worked. I felt the force pushing on me suddenly let up, just as the pause on my clothes ran out. I started dropping again, but it was a normal drop that time. I was just falling.

  Something hit me, and I looked down to see a yellow splotch on my clothes. Then my fall got slower.

  All three of us landed at the bottom of that ravine and shook ourselves off. The yellow paint disappeared a couple seconds later, even as Penny dropped down next to me and leaned in to sniff at the yellow spot. She made a noise of surprise when the paint vanished, then turned to stare at the two Seosten accusingly.

  For a moment, they were silent, looking at her, then around at all the hovering ghosts. Cassiel found her voice first. “Wow, you really are a powerful Necromancer. I guess you inherited a lot of your dad’s power, huh?”

  A slight blush crossed my face just like myself, and I gave a murmur of gratitude to all of the ghosts in question before focusing on those two. My hand moved to ruffle Penny Dreadful’s hair a bit. “Yeah, it's helpful. Especially in cases like this. But I guess we should get back up there and keep going.” I already had my staff in hand while Cassiel looked like she was looking for the best spot above us to hit with paint.

  Sariel, however, raised a hand to stop both of us before we could do anything else. Her eyes were focused on the far side of the pit area we were in, a frown touching her face. “I know that symbol.”

  Looking that way in confusion, I saw what she was talking about. At the bottom of this crevice, right across from us, was another piece of machinery, similar to everything else that had been spread through the ravine to create the shield/sucking/pushing effect.

  The symbol that Sariel was referring to took up most of the exposed bit of machinery, clearly visible through a layer of dust. It looked like a three-fingered green paw with short but sharp black claws slashing through a white rectangle. Where the claws had ‘cut’ through the rectangle there were jagged red lines. A small yet distinctive black nine-pointed star was on the back of that green paw.

  “I’ve seen that symbol before,” Sariel murmured, already starting to walk that way. It was like she’d completely forgotten what we were doing and the whole urgency thing.

  “Uh.” I exchanged a look with Cassiel before starting that way. “Sariel, I really hate to interrupt, I do. But we really need to get back up there so we can make sure the universe doesn’t end and--”

  “My mother drew this symbol.” Her hand rose to point to that bit of metal, after stopping right in front of it. “Over and over again, she drew this symbol. Why did she draw that symbol? I could never figure it out. No one knew what it was. No one could understand. It didn’t match any logo that any of our people had ever seen before. She just kept drawing it. They thought she made it up. I thought she made it up. Why is it here?” Yeah, she had definitely forgotten about everything else. I wasn’t even sure she was actually processing anything we were saying. Hell, she might not even remember that we were there. For all I knew, she was just talking to herself, not explaining things to us.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew Sariel had--yeah, a long and complicated history with her mother. Korsmea had been on some sort of mission when she was hit with a really nasty magical curse that basically broke her memory. Apparently from that point on, she was always lost in her memories, acting and talking as though it was some random point in the past. She would think the people she was actively looking at were people from her own history, friend or foe. Or, in the case of one orderly that had led to Sariel being created, lover.

  The point was, Korsmea had been suffering from that memory curse for a long time, at least as of when I originally met Sariel. I wasn’t sure how long she would have been affected by it as of this point, but obviously at least a hundred years. And they had never found a cure for it in all that time, even to our present day. All their magic and technology and they’d never been able to fix that curse.

  No wonder Sariel is kind of freaking out right now, Story murmured. She’s been looking for any sign of how to help her mother. That’s why she became a scientist to begin with. It’s why she’s done all this, it’s why being a good mother to her own children is so important to her. Now she’s looking at this symbol that her mother kept drawing, a symbol she thought was just made up nonsense until now? I’d ignore us too.

  By that point, Cassiel had stepped up next to the woman. “Sariel, do--” They glanced at me, then back to her. “Do you want to see if there’s anything else behind that bit of metal, anything that might give you answers? Maybe something to explain where this tech comes from.” Even as they said that, their hand rose, hitting part of the machinery that didn’t have that symbol on it with what turned out to be pink paint. Right, they were avoiding covering up the actual symbol itself with it. But why would that matter, since the paint would simply disappear when--

  Then they stepped up, reached out, and simply shoved their hand into the pink-painted metal before pulling it apart. The stuff came off like Play-Doh, leaving a hole in the machinery. Oh, so that was what the pink paint did. Good to know.

  Sariel jolted a bit as though snapping out of whatever train of thought she had been lost in. Stepping that way quickly, she audibly swallowed before leaning in to look through the hole that had been made.

  Some part of me was screaming that we had to hurry, considering everything that was going on. But how was I supposed to make Sariel leave right now? How would I have reacted if someone tried to pull me away from getting answers about my mother before she was safe? And she had only been missing for a paltry decade by that point. Korsmea had been affected by this curse for Sariel’s entire life, for over a century. How could I possibly tell her she couldn’t even take a closer look at this machine to see if there was any information?

  Maybe because I knew there wouldn’t be. Because Sariel hadn’t yet helped her mother even a couple thousand years in the future. Some part of her might be hoping there was a magic cure in that machine, or an answer that would tell her exactly how to fix her mom, but I knew there wasn’t. But how could I say that? How could I just come out and tell her this was pointless? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she would see or find something here now that would lead to a solution all those years in the future. There was always a chance, I would never forgive myself if I refused to let her at least try.

  So, I stood back a bit, trying to remind myself that we could leave as soon as she had a chance to examine this thing. How long could it possibly take? It wasn’t like there was some sort of--

  “Nothing,” Sariel muttered, voice cracking a bit with emotions I couldn’t possibly hope to fully understand. Emotions that made me wish my parents were here. We’d been separated for only a few minutes now, but I wanted them back with me. I wanted to know they were safe.

  “There’s nothing there,” the woman continued quietly. “I thought there might be something… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I just… I wanted--”

  She was interrupted by a beam of light that abruptly came out of nowhere, shooting down into the ravine to encompass us. It was blinding, almost painfully so. The ground abruptly shook underneath us, knocking me to the ground alongside the other two. Wait, other four? There were two other figures right there.

  “Jacob!” Mom, it was Mom, she was there with my dad, lying nearby. Her hand moved to press against my back, keeping me flat against the dirt when I tried to straighten up. “Stay down, they’re fighting out there!”

  Feeling confused and dizzy, I tilted my head to look up. We weren’t in a ravine anymore. We were… we were on some sort of alien world, judging by the pinkish-orange sky and green clouds. The landscape around us was barren, red-black dirt with the occasional dark rock. And sure enough, in the distance I could see two different armies swarming over each other. They were too far away to make out details, aside from the fact that there were thousands of them and they were killing one another while destroying the landscape even more than it already was.

  Oh, and there was some sort of giant super-tank driving toward us, its barrel adjusting to point our way. Yeah, they knew we were here. Whoever ‘they’ were.

  Before I could even process that, let alone react to it, another figure entered the range of my item-sense. My head twisted just in time to catch a glimpse of the figure darting past while calling for us to stay down. Her hand snapped out, throwing something off into the distance, like a grenade. But when the thing detonated, the tank was yanked off the ground, flipped end over end, and slammed into the ground nearby before basically falling in on itself. Whatever that grenade had been, it seemed to destroy the tank’s internal structure, making it collapse. The impact as it hit the ground also sent a shower of dirt and rocks over us.

  But I wasn’t paying attention to that. Not really. How could I, when the very next thing I heard was Sariel’s very soft, almost inaudible whisper as she stared at the figure who had thrown that grenade.

  “Mama?”

  Joke Tags: At Least We All Have A Nice View Of The Oncoming Trainwreck?