Cytonic (Skyward #3)(15)

I thought it through, surveying the crude drawing. M-Bot hovered over, inspected it, and took a picture.

“What’s to the far right?” I said, pointing. “And the far left? Can you go all the way around?”

“Possibly,” Chet said, “but in those directions there are large expanses with no fragments. Empty sections are dangerous to cross, even with a ship. But the Path of Elders is forward, not to the sides. Still determined to walk it?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“That’s the spirit!” he said, standing.

“Once we do all this, there will still be one problem,” I said. “I’ll need to get home. If the Superiority doesn’t let me use their portals, then what?”

“Well…” Chet said. “Theoretically there’s a way out. A quite simple one.” He turned and looked toward the lightburst.

Right. That was the center of the nowhere—the place where I traveled when I hyperjumped. “If I get into the lightburst, I can jump home?”

“I believe so,” he said. “I’ve never dared get close enough. But it should work—it’s like a giant portal between dimensions, after all. I’ll admit, though, the lightburst intimidates me. Inside, there is no time. There is no place. It’s like…a single point somehow as vast as a universe.”



Scud, that broke my brain to think about. I took a deep breath. “Let’s get on the Path first.”

“Onward we go, then!” He pointed with his stick, like some general with a sword. “We’ll need to cross eight fragments to get to where the Path starts. But in relative terms, that’s right round the corner!”

We continued across the sand, and M-Bot went hovering off to investigate some of the local plants. Just walking was harder to do than I’d imagined. It took extra effort to move when the ground kept shifting beneath you. Yet I was excited. This was all so new, so interesting.

I fished in my pocket and brought out my father’s pin. I felt…serenity, having it in my hand. How odd.

Chet eyed it as he had before. Hungry. As if he physically couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. I trusted him well enough, but…well, that hunger made me tuck the icon away. Instead I brought out one of the reality ashes and handed it to him. It was merely a speck, but he took it reverently and tucked it into a pouch from his pocket. Then he held that pouch, breathing in and out, and visibly relaxed.

“You said people lose themselves in here without those,” I said. “Is that what was happening to that burl? The pirate whose face was…melting?”

Chet shook his head. “I don’t know what that was. It felt like something far worse. Like…”

“A delver was possessing her.”

“Indeed. I normally enjoy new and exciting events, yet I would not wish to repeat that one! But thank you for the ash. It is…comforting to hold.”

There was a haunting tone to his voice. “Do…you remember anything of who you were?” I asked. “Before?”



“No,” he whispered. “I have forgotten myself entirely. I remember some few things about the last few days before I entered—some caverns, and old ruins—but that time is so vague to me. Even my early days in here are fuzzy. That’s not surprising, I confess. I’ve been here a long time—almost two centuries, I think!”

“Wait, two hundred years?” I asked.

“Well, around a hundred and seventy,” he replied. “Best I can count. Time is hard to track in here, but I wrote down the date—and have been able to confirm it a few times in order to help me keep track. Yet I haven’t aged a single day.

“I haven’t always been able to get ashes, so during those times I took work for one group or another, since people staying together can replicate the effect of ashes.”

I found it daunting to think about what had happened to Chet. If I stayed too long, would I forget Gran-Gran? My father? My friends? Scud, I needed some time to process that.

Unfortunately, M-Bot chose that moment to come hovering up, jabbering excitedly. “Did you see those things over there, Spensa? Those are cacti! They’re so beautiful. Is it normal to see something like that, and feel so overwhelmed? I…I want to write poetry about how pretty they are.”

“Uh…” I said.

“Cacti are so neat, they make me want to dance. Is that a good poem? Will you rate it on a scale of one to ten?”

“Poems don’t deserve numbers, M-Bot. But if you like it, then it’s wonderful.”

“Great! Let’s see what my rhythm and rhyme analysis protocols say… Oh, Spensa. That’s a terrible poem. You should be ashamed for liking it. You know, ‘cacti’ is such a funny word. I think ‘cactuses’ would have been less funny, don’t you? And easier to rhyme?”

I just wanted a break right now—though I loved the robot, he could be a bit much. “Hey, I think I saw a mushroom,” I said, pointing.



“What, really?” he said. “Where!”

“Between those two bushes over there, in the distance.”

He zoomed off. I found myself thinking about what Chet had said about his age. Two hundred years?

“So…are we immortal in here?” I asked.