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The Complete Interworld Trilogy: Interworld; The Silver Dream; Eternity’s Wheel
Michael Reaves
Neil Gaiman
Written by New York Times bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves with Mallory Reaves, INTERWORLD is a riveting trilogy, full of bravery, loyalty, time and space travel -and the future of a young man who is more powerful than he realises.INTERWORLD: Joey Harker is the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension.This walk between worlds makes Joey prey to armies of magic and science, both determined to harness Joey’s power to travel between dimensions. The only thing standing in their way is Joey – or to be more precise an army of Joeys, all from different dimensions…Now Joey must make a choice: return to the life he knows or join the battle.The SILVER DREAM: After mastering the ability to walk between dimensions, Joey helped save the Altiverse from destruction.But rival powers of magic and science are still out there, seeking to control all worlds. InterWorld’s peacekeeping mission is far from finished.And when a stranger follows Joey back to BaseTown things get even more complicated. No one knows who she is or where she’s from and, more importantly, why she knows so much about InterWorld. Dangerous times lie ahead…ETERNITY’S WHEEL: As the threat of FrostNight looms ever closer, Joey Harker seeks out more of his fellow Walkers across the Altiverse, training them as fast as he can. But even a solid team of recruits can’t prepare Joey for the ultimate showdown with InterWorld’s enemies, old and new.Joey never wanted to be in charge. But he’s the one everyone is looking to now, and he’ll have to step up if he has any hope of saving InterWorld, the Multiverse, and everything in between.
THE INTERWORLD TRILOGY
Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves and Mallory Reaves
Copyright (#ulink_dcf8e4e4-dfd0-516f-9d46-3547f108a7a8)
HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Interworld
Text copyright © Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, 2007
Cover art © Colin Anderson
Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman
The Silver Dream
Text copyright © Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, 2013
Cover art © Colin Anderson
Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman
Eternity's Wheel
Text copyright © Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves and Mallory Reaves, 2015
Cover art © 2015 by Colin Anderson
Cover design by Heather Daugherty
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008238063
Version: 2016-12-15
CONTENTS
Cover (#u68f2e768-331d-55b0-bc33-9e123e24669a)
Title Page (#ub6bd8420-a5ad-5588-b319-3c0201b9106b)
Copyright (#u97bb0426-bc60-599e-b60f-efcaf7536922)
Interworld (#ub4cd3782-b83e-50b9-81b4-1cf4aaa91638)
The Silver Dream (#litres_trial_promo)
Eternity's Wheel (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Authors (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#uc8e7120d-863e-500a-81b8-3414bd332129)
NEIL
would like to dedicate this book to his son Mike, who read the manuscript and liked it and encouraged us, and always asked when he was going to be able to read it in a real book.
MICHAEL
would like to dedicate this book to Steve Saffel.
CONTENTS
Title Page (#u76580bf3-3fec-53e3-9482-af9de4425dcf)
Dedication (#u95d83d38-d399-58b4-879e-0d3c5a70068c)
Authors’ Note (#ulink_a31380ff-a380-5568-9911-f85a94430a71)
Part One (#ulink_1da37ba8-e1f8-59ba-acaa-59852b4e477f)
Chapter One (#ulink_62f32bb1-a397-53ed-b5bd-64fd482df4c2)
Chapter Two (#ulink_b46c9cf2-89b1-58d8-8f75-56ce859e4189)
Chapter Three (#ulink_db5376f8-ceea-570a-8cf8-c142043432d8)
Chapter Four (#ulink_1d7f73df-c12d-569e-88ac-97b981caee2a)
Interlog (#ulink_ba3e560b-d8fd-5eec-9481-893aa6bf1c67)
Chapter Five (#ulink_525151af-aa8b-5587-9747-b573ab794a06)
Interlog 2 (#ulink_629cc304-ec3c-5c8e-94ef-d1ca4499184a)
Chapter Six (#ulink_0914f85a-7aca-512e-a17f-4cf415a28753)
Chapter Seven (#ulink_d0599fe6-27cc-5a95-b0c5-efb0d4905730)
Chapter Eight (#ulink_6593ee0b-f169-5c64-9ffa-dd7242324f43)
Part Two (#ulink_7f563ffb-c49c-5704-8665-b4943bd95423)
Chapter Nine (#ulink_a9f8fc4b-b33a-51b4-bed8-c529236a2fd3)
Chapter Ten (#ulink_06bafbf5-944d-5059-ad58-8373a2e06582)
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_5c874bc1-19ea-51a2-a552-23605e9bade6)
Chapter Twelve (#ulink_5f3b4018-d569-5f94-9e82-fd4792bf69bd)
Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_a460abc0-93e5-594c-a5d6-7b02bda212f3)
Part Three (#ulink_308e2755-b435-5e3b-94f3-9d8d31cda7a8)
Chapter Fourteen (#ulink_96515c7a-e29b-5fdd-89f6-094f27d31937)
Chapter Fifteen (#ulink_4741b637-6d9e-51a9-a8e3-91400b49b515)
Chapter Sixteen (#ulink_48ac0053-29ee-5a80-8f4c-e1b0e1035dae)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)
AUTHORS’ NOTE (#ulink_c3b7b60a-578f-5c19-956a-6f314a4946dc)
This is a work of fiction. Still, given an infinite number of possible worlds, it must be true on one of them. And if a story set in an infinite number of possible universes is true in one of them, then it must be true in all of them. So maybe it’s not as fictional as we think.
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(#ulink_c2abbd4f-7da0-5090-b901-dd84d86e9385)
ONCE I GOT LOST in my own house.
I guess it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds. We had just built a new annex—added a hallway and a bedroom for the squid, aka Kevin, my really little brother—but still, the carpenters had left and the dust had settled over a month ago. Mom had just sounded the dinner call and I was on my way downstairs. I took a wrong turn on the second floor and found myself in a room wallpapered with clouds and bunnies. I realized I’d turned right instead of left, so I promptly made the same mistake again and blundered into the closet.
By the time I got downstairs Jenny and Dad were already there and Mom was giving me the Look. I knew trying to explain would sound lame, so I just clammed up and dug in to my mac and cheese.
But you see the problem. I don’t have what my aunt Maude used to call a “bump of direction.” If anything, I’ve got a hollow where the bump should be. Forget knowing north from south or east from west—I have a hard enough time telling right from left. Which is all pretty ironic, considering how things turned out . . .
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay. I’m going to write this like Mr. Dimas taught us. He said it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you start somewhere. So I’m going to start with him.
It was the end of the October term of my sophomore year, and everything was pretty normal, except for Social Studies, which was no big surprise. Mr. Dimas, who taught the class, had a reputation for unconventional teaching methods. For midterms he had blindfolded us, then had us each stick a pin in a map of the world and we got to write essays on wherever the pin stuck. I got Decatur, Illinois. Some of the guys complained because they drew places like Ulan Bator or Zimbabwe. They were lucky. You try writing ten thousand words on Decatur, Illinois.
But Mr. Dimas was always doing stuff like that. He made the front page of the local paper last year and nearly got fired when he turned two classes into warring fiefdoms that tried to negotiate peace for an entire semester. The peace talks eventually broke down and the two classes went to war on the quad during free period. Things got a little carried away and a few bloody noses resulted. Mr. Dimas was quoted on the local news as saying, “Sometimes war is necessary to teach us the value of peace. Sometimes you need to learn the real value of diplomacy in avoiding war. And I’d rather my students learned those lessons on the playground than on the battlefield.”
Rumor at school was that he was going to be canned for that one. Even Mayor Haenkle was pretty annoyed, seeing as how his son’s nose was one of the ones bloodied. Mom and Jenny—my younger sister—and I sat up late, drinking Ovaltine and waiting for Dad to come home from the city council meeting. The squid was fast asleep in Mom’s lap—she was still breast-feeding him back then. It was after midnight when Dad came in the back door, tossed his hat on the table and said, “The vote was seven to six, in favor. Dimas keeps his job. My throat’s sore.”
Mom got up to fix Dad some tea, and Jenny asked Dad why he’d gone to bat for Mr. Dimas. “My teacher says he’s a troublemaker.”
“He is,” Dad said. “—Thanks, hon.” He sipped the tea, then went on. “He’s also one of the few teachers around who actually cares about what he’s doing, and who has more than a spoonful of brains to do it with.” He pointed his pipe at Jenny and said, “Past the witching hour, sprite. You belong in bed.”
That was how Dad was. Even though he’s just a city councilman, he has more sway among some people than the mayor does. Dad used to be a Wall Street broker, and he still handles stocks for a few of Greenville’s more prominent citizens, including several on the school board. The councilman job takes only a few days a month most of the year, so Dad drives a cab most days. I asked him once why he did it, since his investments keep the wolf from the door even without Mom’s home jewelry business, and he said he liked meeting new people.
You’d think that nearly getting fired might’ve thrown a scare into Mr. Dimas and gotten him to back off a little, but no such luck. His idea for this year’s Social Studies final was pretty extreme even for him. He divided our class into ten teams of three each, blindfolded us again—he was big on blindfolds—and had a school bus drop us off at random places in the city. We were supposed to find our way to various checkpoints within a certain time without maps. One of the other teachers asked what this had to do with Social Studies, and Mr. Dimas said that everything was Social Studies. He confiscated all cell phones, phone cards, credit cards and cash so we couldn’t call for rides or take buses or cabs. We were on our own.
And that was where it all began.
It’s not like we were in any real danger—downtown Greenville isn’t downtown LA or New York or even downtown Decatur, Illinois. The worst that might happen would be an old lady clobbering us with her purse if one of us was foolish enough to try to help her across 42nd Avenue. Still, I was partnered with Rowena Danvers and Ted Russell, which meant that this was going to be interesting.
The school bus pulled away in a cloud of diesel smoke and we took our blindfolds off. We were downtown—that much was obvious. It was the middle of the day, a chilly October afternoon. Traffic, both foot and car, was pretty light. I immediately looked for the street sign, which said we were on the corner of Sheckley Boulevard and Simak Street.
And I knew where we were.
This was such a surprise that I was tongue-tied for a moment. I was the kid who could get lost going to the corner mailbox, but I knew where this was—we were standing right across the street and down the block from the dentist, where Jenny and I had both had our teeth cleaned just a couple of days before.
Before I could say anything, Ted pulled out the card Mr. Dimas had given each of us on which was written the location where we were to be picked up. “We have to get to the corner of Maple and Whale,” he said. “Hey, maybe we can get your dad to pick us up, Harker.”
This is all you have to know about Ted Russell: He wouldn’t be able to spell “IQ.” Not because he’s dumb— which he is, as a bag of rocks—but because he couldn’t be bothered. He was a year older than me, due to having been kept back. I knew I would get nothing but the kind of jokes even grade-schoolers would roll their eyes at from him. But I was willing to put up with Russell, obnoxious jerk that he was, to be here—to be anywhere—with Rowena Danvers.
I suppose there may have been prettier, smarter, just generally nicer girls at Greenville High, but I’d never bothered looking for them. As far as I was concerned, Rowena was the only girl for me. But after two years of trying, I had failed to convince Rowena that I was anything more than a minor extra in the movie of her life. It wasn’t that she hated me, or even disliked me—I wasn’t important enough to warrant that. I doubt that we’d exchanged more than five sentences during the entire school year, and probably four of those five were along the lines of “Excuse me, but you dropped this” or “I’m sorry, were you sitting here?” Not exactly the stuff of which great romances are made, although I treasured every one of them.
But now, just maybe, I could change that. I could become more than an anonymous blip on her radar. I was practically fifteen, and she was my honest-to-goodness First Love. I mean it. Or I thought I did at the time. It wasn’t just a crush. I wasn’t simply in love with Rowena Danvers—I was madly, deeply, passionately in love. I even told my parents how I felt, and that took guts. If she ever noticed me, I said to them, this would be one of the great love affairs of the century. They could see I was serious, and they didn’t even tease me. They got it. They wished me luck. I would be Tristran and she would be Iseult (whoever they were; that was what Dad said); I would be Sid and she would be Nancy (whoever they were; that was what Mom said). I wanted to impress Rowena Danvers, and so what if demonstrating that I knew how to cross a street in the right direction wasn’t exactly the stuff that Shakespeare was made of? I’d take what I could get.
I said, “I know where we are.”
Ted and Rowena looked at me dubiously. “Yeah, right. I’d sooner put the blindfold back on. Come on, Rowena,” Ted said, taking her arm. “Everybody knows that Harker couldn’t find his butt with both hands tied behind him.”
She pulled her arm free and looked at me. I could see that she didn’t relish walking five or six blocks with Ted Russell, but that she also didn’t want to be wandering around downtown for the rest of the day. “Are you sure you know where we are, Joey?” she asked.
