The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) by Richard Fox

flush of a dark-colored rash spread over his face then faded away.
    “Your mind can’t grasp a multidimensional space, perhaps like explaneing color to the blind. One of my labs is beyond this door. Go on,” Malal said.
    “Then why can she see something?” Hale asked.
    “Perhaps she is not entirely human,” Malal said.
    Stacey shrugged her shoulders slightly. “It’s complicated.”
    “To hell with this.” Hale stepped toward the doorway. His reflection appeared, like he was staring into polished obsidian. He stopped a foot away from the doorway…and his reflection did the same with a slight delay.
    Hale stepped into the doorway, his limbs tingling as he passed through. His lead foot found nothing but air and he stumbled forward, splashing into water up to his knees, and found himself surrounded by wide-leafed plants that came up to his shoulders. The plants’ thick stalks ran from lumps of mossy soil that just barely broke the surface of ice blue water and stretched out for dozens of yards in a haze-filled enclosure. The water lapped at a patch of ground covered in silver grass. Hale made for the solid ground, sloshing water around him as he moved.
    Elias came through the doorway, his cannons up and ready.
    “What is this?” Elias asked. His helm swung from side to side. “My thermal lenses must be malfunctioning. Everything in here is the same temperature.”
    Hale got onto the patch of ground. The haze thickened until he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards away from him. The sound of more Marines and armor splashing in the water carried through the air.
    “Up here.” Hale waved a hand in the air. Cortaro directed the team into a hasty perimeter on the silver knoll.
    Malal and Stacey stayed in the water. The ancient entity touched one of the plants and motes of light ran up and down the stalk and filled the leaf with streaks of light. Hale jumped into the water and stopped next to the pair.
    “This is your lab?” Hale asked.
    “No.” Malal cracked the stalk with his hand and ripped the leaf away. The plant withered instantly, leaving him holding a blackened mass.
    “I don’t know what this is.”
     
    ****
     
    Malal’s feet shifted through the silver grass. He bent over and plucked a blade free, then tossed it into his mouth.
    “Did he leave the water running, or something?” Standish asked Stacey from the edge of the security perimeter. She’d kept her eye on Malal, waiting for him to “reorient himself.” “Maybe these plants are some sort of ancient alien mold that just got out of hand.”
    “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said.
    “I would hope yours would be better,” Standish said. “On account of you being his chaperone and hobnobbing with all that crazy stuff on Bastion.”
    Malal walked off into the haze.
    “Follow him,” Hale said.
    Stacey ran over to Malal and matched his pace. The grass grew longer, covering their ankles as they progressed through the haze.
    “Care to explane what all this is?” she asked. “Some experiment of yours gone out of control?”
    “I’ve located my lab. Some…thing managed to break into my vault and alter the landscape,” Malal said. “Not Xaros. Not anything I recognize.”
    The haze faded away. Neat rows of white trees with tall, arched branches reached twenty feet into the air. The trees glowed from within, the light diffusing into darkness not much farther into the air. There was something very familiar about those trees…
    “They altered the landscape? Can you even find your way around anymore?” she asked.
    “The intruders locked everything into place beyond the first dimensional door. The compartments are now linked together, whereas I’d had them all within their own domains. Whatever did this violated my vision, my plan,” Malal said.
    “How can you tell?” she asked.
    “I feel the energy from the power grid.” Malal put his hand on a glowing tree and the bark darkened and cracked beneath his touch. “Feel the