He swept his arm around as if introducing the hundreds of men watching. "These are but a few of my legions that I will send into the most secure, secluded places you can imagine. Do you know that we have the ability to show up in, say, the bedroom of your president? The bedroom of every world leader? We can eviscerate your leaders, your police commanders, your army generals. Why, I have an entire staff of people who have nothing better to do than think up ways in which to kill the unsuspecting people of your world.
"If I want, I could even set nations against each other and launch your world into war. I could have my legions carry out the most brutal attacks to partially bring down the ruling government of Israel, for example, and goad them into launching a nuclear attack against surrounding nations. If I want, I can light the fuse that will ignite a holocaust."
"Alex," Jax said, "listen to him. He"s not bluffing. He will kill innocent people in the thousands."
Cain turned to her. "Don"t be insulting. I will kill the people here in the tens of thousands-the hundreds of thousands-if I have to."
Alex felt dizzy. He knew that Jax was right, that Cain wasn"t bluffing.
As if to prove his point, Cain looked around at all the men watching. "If Lord Rahl Lord Rahl, here, does not give me what I want, you will all receive my order to carry out the instructions you have already been given."
The men all bowed their heads.
"I"m not giving you what you want," Alex said.
Cain turned a cold glare on him. "Then the killing will continue until you do. If I have to reduce this world to a sea of blood, I will."
"Alex," Jax said, drawing his attention again. "Please, do as he asks. You alone hold sway over all those innocent lives. You alone can prevent this from happening to your world."
Alex stepped out onto the sand, closer to her. "Why would you turn yourself over to him? Why are you doing this?"
"Because I know that as long as I"m free you would never give up. As long as I"m free you would fight no matter what. I can"t let you put your love for me above all the people who will die if you keep fighting him. I had to remove myself from the equation.
"To let this happen, to let him unleash his wrath on your world while I stand by and watch, is a violation of all that I value and believe in-of everything I"ve been fighting to preserve. I couldn"t let your world pay the price for the people in my world.
"We are lost. Our war is done. Don"t let it come down on your world, too. Please, Alex, do what he says. Don"t let any more people here die needlessly.
"There is nothing you can do for me now. I am lost. Let me go. Only you can do something to save all the people in your world who will otherwise die. Please, Alex, don"t allow the sacrifice of my life to stand for nothing. Do as he wants and think of your own people now."
"Yet more outdated moral drivel," Cain said in a contemptuous tone. "Hardly the kind of strength exhibited by the strong, by true visionary leaders. No wonder you"re losing." He turned to Alex. "Still, you should listen to her, if for no other reason than because you are just as weak as she is and you will want to spare the people in your world all the pain and suffering I will unleash on them."
Alex looked away from the venomous glare of Radell Cain, back into the eyes of the woman he loved more than life itself.
"These people are from my world," she said softly. "We must suffer them. You must not let this place suffer them as well. That is your highest responsibility. I gave myself up because if I didn"t my life would be lived at the cost of the lives of thousands of innocent people. I can"t live with that."
"I don"t negotiate with murderers," Alex said.
"You aren"t negotiating," she whispered, "you are making a choice. You can"t win by wishing it was other than it is. This is what is before us. We have to choose or the choice will be made for us and others here will suffer because of it."
"You should listen to her, Alex," Cain said. "She"s a smart lady. That"s why I can"t allow her to run free."
Alex swallowed at the lump in his throat. He could think of no argument that could change things. He had nothing to fight with. If he held out, then all the suffering and death that Cain promised would come to pa.s.s.
"Let her go first."
Cain heaved an irritated sigh. "I grow weary of this." He turned to the men watching. "You all have your a.s.signments. Go, now, and await my orders. If you get my command, then you will unleash war on these people tomorrow. If he cooperates by tonight, and you don"t receive orders from me to attack, then return home at once to prepare for the transition to the new reality in our own world, where we must be ready to rule."
Men all around clapped fists to hearts in salute. In so doing they also vanished almost all at the same time. Where hundreds had stood, there was only darkness and stone. Only a few dozen men remained behind.
Radell Cain turned back to Alex. "They will be in place by tonight, out among the people of your world-death stalking among the unaware and unprepared. If you don"t open the gateway for me, then by morning I will give them the order to start killing on a scale you can"t imagine.
"What"s more," he said with a growing smile, "I will hand Jax over to Yuri to do with as he will. If you cooperate, I will instead have her beheaded-put to death quickly. If not . . ." He shrugged.
Yuri pulled out a knife, displaying it for Alex. It was Jax"s silver-handled knife. "Don"t you worry, my men and I will keep her alive for a good long time. When we finally tire of her feminine charms, then I"ll start in cutting on her."
Jax closed her eyes at the terror awaiting her.
Alex knew that he"d run out of options, and time.
He gazed into her beautiful, sad eyes as they opened. In those forlorn eyes he could see his world ending.
"You know, don"t you? I can see it in your eyes," she whispered to him. "You figured it out, didn"t you?"
He nodded.
"Then don"t let me down, Alexander. The time has come to defend mankind, here, in your world. Open the gateway for him."
"All right," he whispered back to her, "I"ll do it."
ALEX GESTURED TO JAX to move off the area of sand. Yuri seized her arm and roughly pulled her back against the stone wall. Alex went out onto the white sand and with his arm smoothed the footprints out, leveling the sand. He began drawing the symbols that he had learned from Jax to activate a lifeline, only on a large scale. He needed to buy a little time to think things through, to put together all the things Jax had told him, and the things the Daggett Society had told him about what the book said. He made a job of carefully laying out the designs as he put all the pieces together in his head.
"That"s not going to open the gateway," Sedrick Vendis snapped.
Alex looked up at the man. "Since you seem to know so much, why don"t you tell your boss how it"s done?"
Vendis glowered but finally folded his arms and fell silent.
When he finished drawing, Alex stood and faced Cain. "I will have to trust that you will keep your word she won"t suffer at the end."
Cain"s smile was bone-chillingly evil. "I"m nothing if not a man of my word."
"Since this is the end for Jax and me, I want to tell her a few private words of good-bye before I finish this for you. I want to have a moment alone with her. Then I will open your gateway for you. If you won"t grant me that simple human decency, then I may not believe that you"re an understanding man who will keep his word about granting her a swift death."
Alex gave the man an iron look. "I may have second thoughts."
Cain glared for a moment. He finally held out his hand. "The knife first."
Alex pulled the silver-handled knife out of the sheath behind the two magazines on the left side of his belt. He held it by the blade still stained with Jax"s blood and placed the handle with the House of Rahl symbol in the man"s hand. Cain looked down at the knife in his hand as Alex stood with his own hands in his pockets, waiting.
Cain finally gestured with the knife. "All right, if it will end this pathetic emotional drama, go ahead."
"Alone," Alex reminded him.
"Leave them be, Yuri."
The greasy pirate moved away to stand beside Sedrick Vendis as the three of them watched Alex go up to where Jax, her hands tied behind her back, stood all by herself against the stone wall. She looked forlorn and resigned.
Vendis asked Cain something in a whisper. The men leaned in, discussing it among themselves as Alex stepped up close to Jax. Her chin trembled as she finally looked up at him.
"I"m so sorry, Alex."
As he put his arms around her she put her face against his shoulder and started to cry.
"Don"t be sorry, Jax," he whispered, "be strong."
Alex placed his open pocketknife that he had palmed into her hands behind her back.
She went still when she realized what it was.
"The blade is razor-sharp," he whispered into her ear. "Be careful when you cut the ropes. Keep your hands together as if they"re still tied and wait. You"ll know when."
"Alex-"
"Jax, I"d rather die trying than let them have what they want. You can"t bargain with evil. You can"t appease it. You can"t compromise with it.
"Giving in to them will only lead to endless suffering and death in the long run. How long until they return here deciding they want more from this world and start to kill again to get it? I have to try to stop it now. You"re the one who came here to stop this evil. You came here to do a job. It"s not finished. Are you with me? Are you willing to try?"
He knew what he was asking of her. Yuri stood not far away leering hungrily at her. They both knew the consequences if they failed, not merely for her, but for everyone.
She nodded against him, putting on a show for the men watching. "You"re right. If we have any chance, we have to take it. I was so afraid for the people of your world, so afraid that I had come for your help only to end up causing harm, that I forgot who I was for a time. Dear spirits, can you ever forgive me for being so weak?"
He reached up and held her tight, smoothing her hair as he held her head to him. "That"s the Jax I love. You"re anything but weak. You"re the strongest person I know. In case this doesn"t work, just know that I love you more than anything."
"You are a devious man, Alexander Rahl." She kissed his neck. "I love you anyway."
"I learned it from you."
"Enough," Cain growled.
Alex kissed her quickly, then turned to his task.
ALEX HELD HIS HAND OUT. "I need the knife."
Radell Cain"s eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"To open the gateway."
"And how is the knife going to do that?"
"Opening the gateway requires the person named by the Law of Nines. Right?"
Cain studied his face for a moment. "Go on."
Alex spread his hands. "So how the h.e.l.l is the gateway supposed to know it"s me, know I"m the one named by the Law of Nines? Do you think that because it"s me I can simply say "Open sesame" and the gateway will recognize me as the one and open? There is no magic in this world, so how is the gateway to know that I"m the one that is able to open it?"
"I give up, how?" Cain asked with clear distaste for the game Alex was playing.
"Blood."
"Blood?"
"Yes. It needs my blood to recognize that I"m the one who is able to open it."
"Well," Cain said, "now you have my interest."
He handed the silver knife kept by the Daggett Society for a thousand years back to Alex, the one named by the Law of Nines as the only person who could open the gateway.
Alex drew the weapon across his forearm. As dull as it was, he was still able to cut himself enough to bleed liberally. In the back of his mind, Alex realized that the cut on his left forearm was very much the same place, direction, and length as the cut on Jax"s forearm from when the man who had infiltrated the Daggett Trust had attacked her.
Alex wiped the blade in the blood running down his arm. The cut stung, but he was already lost in his own world, in what he had to do. He turned the blade and wiped the other side until both sides of the steel were red and blood dripped from the tip.
Radell Cain seemed to be quite caught up in the ritual to open the gateway.
Alex went to the rock that had the flat spot with the petroglyph. He held the knife over the rock, slanting it down just a little. He let a few drops of blood drip off the tip into the slot.
With a thud to the air all around, a faint glow of light ignited over the sand.
Men watching oohed at the strange, charged feeling to the air and the light from nowhere shining before them. It was beautiful, entrancing, inviting.
"All right, I need some people to send through the gateway."
"What for?" Cain asked with an angry frown.
"It doesn"t just open," Alex insisted. "You can"t load cargo on the sand in the center and transport it. It needs people to work. It"s people that are the core of its function, so the gateway needs people to open.
The more people the better it works-the wider the gateway opens to accommodate them. In that way, the more things-the more supplies and cargo-the gateway will support going through it."
Radell Cain thought it over. He seemed to understand that it made sense.
Everyone else stood staring in amazement at the slowly twisting shaft of light hovering over the sand before them.
"Well?" Alex asked. "You wanted the gateway opened. It"s opened. But to make it actually work, we need to send people through it."
Radell Cain, finally grinning in triumph, gestured some of his men forward. "Come on, then. Let"s have some of you go tell them that we"ve succeeded."
Half a dozen men rushed forward. Alex was surprised that they seemed so eager. He guessed that in their world they were used to such things and accepted them.
The men gathered out on the area of sand. They held their hands out as if showering in the light. By their reaction it appeared to tingle pleasantly. They all looked up into the sky as if looking up into the source of the warm light. Like kids about to go on an amus.e.m.e.nt-park ride, they all wore big grins.
Radell Cain stepped forward to the edge of the granite before the sand, fascinated by the light show and the way it began to sparkle with the presence of the men. Sedrick Vendis as well stepped up to get a closer look.
"All right," Cain said to Alex, gesturing with an arm as if urging him to levitate the men, "go on, open it fully. Do it."
Alex held the knife in his fist above the slot. "Ready?" he asked the men in the light.