The Forever Gate
Ultimate Edition
Isaac Hooke
BOOKS BY ISAAC HOOKE
Science Fiction
The Forever Gate Series
(all 9 included in this edition)
The Dream
A Second Chance
The Mirror Breaks
They Have Wakened Death
I Have Seen Forever
Rebirth
Walls of Steel
The Pendulum Swings
The Last Stand
Space Opera
Star Warrior
Star Warrior
Bender of Worlds
He Who Crosses Death
Doom Wielder
Military Science Fiction
ATLAS Trilogy
(published by 47North)
ATLAS
ATLAS 2
ATLAS 3
Alien War Trilogy
Hoplite
Zeus
Titan
Argonauts
Bug Hunt
You Are Prey
Alien Empress
Quantum Predation
Robot Dust Bunnies
City of Phants
Rade’s Fury
Mechs vs. Dinosaurs
Operation: Bug Spray
A Captain's Crucible
Flagship
Test of Mettle
Cradle of War
Planet Killer
Worlds at War
Thrillers
The Ethan Galaal Series
Clandestine
A Cold Day in Mosul
Terminal Phase
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Contents
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Volume 1
I. The Dream
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
II. A Second Chance
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
III. The Mirror Breaks
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
IV. They Have Wakened Death
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Epilogue
V. I Have Seen Forever
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Epilogue
Volume 2
I. Rebirth
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
II. Walls of Steel
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
III. The Pendulum Swings
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 46
IV. The Last Stand
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Special Deal from Isaac Hooke
Afterword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, organizations, places, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Copyright © Isaac Hooke 2018
All righ
ts reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
www.IsaacHooke.com
Cover art by ShooKooBoo, Bo Benson Ray Sales, Jason Moser, Tenda Spencer
Cover design by Isaac Hooke
Ascend the impossible.
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Volume One
In the beginning…
Part I
The Dream
1
Hoodwink stared at the sword that would take his head tonight.
The weapon was sealed away in a glass case for all to see, set there to remind the particular occupants of this section of the dungeon what their short futures held. It was a simple sword of dual-edged copper, with a blunt point. The jailer had taken the blade to the whetstone this very morning, and those edges gleamed in brutal anticipation. Scenes of agonized victims and delighted torturers etched its surface. The blade seemed rusted in places, perhaps from years of bloodletting. But copper didn't rust, so those dark brown marks had to be something else. Maybe stains from the headless men who'd shit themselves.
Hoodwink fingered the metallic collar around his neck. If he didn't have that bronze bitch on he would've broken down the dungeon cell with a bolt of lightning, taken the sword, and cut his way out of here in a storm of electrical glory.
The torchlight flickered and a draft of cold air kissed his neck. The touch brought him back to the present, where, outside the bars, Briar had been rattling on the whole time.
"Are you listening to me?" Briar said.
Hoodwink nodded. "Listening for all I'm worth, I am." Viewed through the long vertical bars embedded in the stone, Briar looked thinner somehow. Or maybe it was the rich, patterned silks the man had recently started wearing. Hoodwink recalled a time not too long ago when Briar had been the one in the dungeon, and Hoodwink the one on the outside. Briar sure wasn't dressed in silks back then.
"Look," Briar said. "I've got the whoremongers lined up. Clerks, witnesses, and so on and so forth. Damn shame the judge is a gol though. He would have been the first to bribe. Ah well, just have to pay someone else to take the fall. You know how it is. So many poor folk in this city. Do anything to support their families. Even die." He winked conspiratorially.
Hoodwink squeezed his fingers around the bars. "No."
Briar knotted his brow. "What did you say?"
"No." Hoodwink straightened his back, and stared the man down. "The only one who's taking the fall is me. You'll bribe no one, you won't." He had to protect her, no matter what.
"Oh please, don't you give me that holier-than-thou bullshit." Briar's face flushed scarlet. "This is hardly the time. It's your life we're talking about here."
"There's too many witnesses. They all saw me."
Briar threw up his hands. "They can be silenced. You know that. Each and every last one of them. And if they won't take the bribes..."
Hoodwink crossed his arms. "I don't want your help. Don't want no one's help. I don't. I'll take the blame for my actions." For her actions.
Briar shook his head and his jowls trembled. His collar was almost buried in the folds of neck fat. "You've gone mad then, haven't ye?" Those eyes widened in mock surprise. "He's gone mad."
Hoodwink nodded toward Briar's throat. "You really ought to get that resized sometime."
"What," Briar said. "The bronze bitch?"
"No. Your neck." Normally he wouldn't insult Briar like that, but he just wanted him to go.
The simple-looking jailer came up. He wore black pants and a black vest over a white shirt. The middle of the shirt was stamped with the blood palm of his profession. He looked like a real person, as most gols did. Sometimes when you talked to gols you could almost believe they were real, if you kept things light, superficial. But engage in any deeper conversation and you routed them out. Gols, the mindless working class of the city-state.
The jailer nodded at Briar. "Visiting hours are up, krub." He wiped drool from his mouth with one sleeve. You would have never seen a gol doing something like that five years ago. The gols had really degenerated in the past few months.
"I heard you, gol," Briar said. "Jobe is it?"
The gol nodded. "My name is Jobe. Now get you to the surface, krub."
Briar smiled ironically, and glanced at Hoodwink. "Until later, then. Hopefully a few more hours in the asshole of the world will blast some sense into you."
Briar retrieved his fleece from the coat rack outside the cell, and ambled away down the torchlit tunnel. Hoodwink was suddenly aware of other eyes watching from the dark of nearby cells. Briar seemed oblivious, concerned only with moving his bulk up the tunnel. The man paused beside the display case that held the sword, and he shook his head, muttering something.
"Briar," Hoodwink said.
The man looked back.
Hoodwink almost didn't ask. He didn't want the other prisoners to hear. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he said, "Say sorry to Cora for me."
Briar frowned and he turned away. In moments he was a featureless silhouette among the shadows.
Hoodwink felt the jailer's eyes on him.
"What are you looking at gol?" He pulled the neck of his jail-issue orange robe tight, covering his upper chest, which was blistered and red from the events of this morning.
Jobe didn't blink. "I am on guard duty, krub."
Hoodwink scrunched up his face. "Don't you have something better to do than stare at me all day?"
"I am on guard duty, krub." Spoken exactly the same way. Jobe unexpectedly clouted the bars with his baton.
Hoodwink leaped back.
Jobe broke into a stupid grin.
Hoodwink shook his head, and limped over to the cell's only mat. "Damn gols."
Not only was Hoodwink's chest badly burned, but he'd hurt his ankle something nasty this morning during the capture. He'd given the Gate guards quite the chase, that's for sure. If he hadn't stopped to roll in the snow and douse the flames on his person he might've made it.
Lying on the mat, he lifted one hand to his face. The guttering torches whipped shadows across his knuckles. He made a fist. He could almost feel the electricity within, the power that was shielded away by the collar at his neck, the bronze bitch.
The gols had bitched him when he was fifteen, just when he'd started to develop his powers, like all the other humans who came of age. Bitched for twenty years. He had tried so many different things to get that collar off over the years, but nothing had worked.