Resolution Read Online Free

might be placing himself and Elva in the hands of his enemies. And yet, and yet...
     
    It was something real, he knew: something more than fear.
     
    Then a familiar silent voice sounded in his mind:
     
    Tom? Is that you in there?
     
    He chuckled and headed towards the lounge, holopad in hand. As he stepped inside, he made to shut down the image, but Eemur’s next words stopped him.
     
    No, don’t ... There’s a link here, my Lord. A very strange but important link.
     
    What kind of link?
     
    A form of entanglement? I’m not sure. But something ...
     
    Tom shivered.
     
    The nervous systems of Elva and her twin sister Litha had been quantum-entangled since an early age. When Elva’s body had perished (or, as she said with no trace of humour, the first time she died), her consciousness had instantaneously displaced Litha’s mind in Litha’s body. But this could not be what Eemur was talking about: setting up such a link was a long, tricky process, and fallible; Elva sometimes woke up amid fading tag-ends of dreams that were not hers.
     
    ‘Eemur?’ Tom spoke aloud. ‘How can there be a link? These people must have perished centuries ago.’
     
    There was no reply.
     
    ‘Eemur?’
     
    Then her words came with an odd, eerie overlay: I haven’t given you your wedding present yet.
     
    ‘That’s all right’
     
    Let’s do it now.
     
    ‘Don’t worry about—’
     
    But you have to kiss me first.
     

     
    Confusion whirled inside Tom. Once before, he had picked up Eemur’s Head and kissed her like an automaton, not knowing why he was doing it. While Blight-subsumed soldiers had threatened them, Tom had kissed two sapphire tears from her eyes and gained strange abilities, just for a few moments. For long enough.
     
    But now—
     
    In some fashion, Eemur’s Head had saved his and Elva’s lives. Now, Tom knew he should refuse her request; yet he could not. Deep inside, he did not want to refuse.
     
    Eemur.
     
    Tom leaned forward, and then Eemur’s black-and-purple tongue was slithering, slick and icy, inside his mouth. Sucking the warmth from him.
     
    Sapphires sparkled.
     
    What ...?
     
    Cold lightning seared his lips.
     
    Congratulations, my sweet Lord.
     
    Tore his universe apart.
     

     
    Tom fell into that explosion, whorls of brightness flashing past, arced around atoms grown the size of galaxies; fell through the humming strangeness of quarks, the scream of incandescent spacetime whose warp and weave stretched to encompass him.
     
    He dropped through.
     
    Twisting along the Calabi-Yau dimensions, sliding through hyper-geometric crawlspaces beneath the subset revealed to human senses ... he could almost comprehend the mosaic, the eleven-dimensioned tessellae slotting together to form the universe. The human universe, real-space, was just a brane’s width away from ...
     
    Tom slammed into normal size.
     
    He lay on black, gleaming glass, panting hard.
     
    Where the Chaos am I?
     

     
    It was a cold great metal hall, formed of abstract sculptures: jagged flanges and polygonal sheets of alloy struck odd angles everywhere. Razor-edged obsidian formed angular archways too high and narrow for humans.
     
    Cold...
     
    Overhead, a vertical hanging sheet of bronze crawled with dark-red crystals which spread in fractal trees, blackened into death, then glimmered red once more. Criss-crossed black hawsers webbed the hall; spinning copper disks moved along them.
     
    Interesting place you’ve chosen.
     
    The air felt thick, cold and oily.
     
    ‘I’ve chosen?’ Tom’s words sounded flat. ‘What is this?’
     
    More flanges materialized, sliding into place. A jumble of metallic sheets moved. An angular carapace shifted, and steel eyes opened.
     
    Tom, I think you’d better ...
     
    But Tom was already moving.
     
    Where in Nulapeiron is this?
     
    Stupid question. He ducked behind a sharp-cornered buttress. Had it seen him? He had caught a glimpse of questing pincers which could