Towers Fall

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  “What do you want with my store?” a man cried. “What do you want with my home?”

  “The Central Spire has claimed this territory,” the Messenger replied. “You cannot remain. Nothing else must be explained.”

  “There’s nothing in the ruins,” a woman yelled over the Messenger’s bland statement. “No shelter from the elements, nothing to protect us from the walkers!”

  Others joined in.

  “I don’t want my children to die!”

  “You can’t do this!”

  On and on—growing loud enough to drown out some of the Messenger’s reply. In the streets beyond, where the Messenger’s bodiless voice echoed, Xhea could hear more shouts, the clamor of other angry voices—but no words.

  Xhea realized she’d lost sight of the ghost of the Enforcer, and dared not search for her. Instead she took a cautious step back, and another, trying to look as if she feared only the Messenger or the crowd at his feet. Trying to slip into the protection of the corner of the wall, out of easy line of sight—and from there, away.

  Besides, she reasoned, ghosts couldn’t hurt her. If the ghost spotted her leaving, what could she do but flail at the end of her tether and watch Xhea run away?

  Another careful step. Another.

  A question made the crowd grow quiet, and it came from an older woman who stood some span from the Messenger’s floating feet. There was nothing aggressive about her stance, though every line of her thin, aged body spoke of someone who would not be moved. She looked up, strands of white hair blowing about her face.

  “What if we don’t go?” Her voice carried across the crowd, almost as if she, too, used a spell to be heard. The streets echoed with the defiant sound of her voice.

  The Messenger had no scripted answer. Instead, his shoulders rose in the suggestion of a shrug. He said, softer, almost amused, “Then so be it.”

  Silence fell—an ominous silence. Xhea saw more than one person bend to the ground, gathering rocks. Before anyone cast a stone, the Messenger lifted his head, spread his arms wide and proclaimed, “Three days! This is your only warning.”

  At his gesture, the map of the so-called “evacuation zone” popped like a soap bubble, only a glimmer of dispersing magic to mark where it had once been. There was more magic in that spell—more magic, even, in its fading exhaust—than most people here would generate in a week.

  “There you are,” a voice said.

  “Xhea, no—” Shai started, but it was too late.

  Xhea turned on instinct and met the eyes of the ghost before her—eyes that wavered and shifted, as did her face, as if seen through running water. But she saw the ghost woman’s smile, a slow lift of dark-painted lips, as Xhea realized her mistake.

  Xhea flinched away, pretending she’d just been looking at the angry crowd, but it was too late. The Enforcer ghost moved toward Xhea, her tether stretching beyond anything Xhea had seen occur naturally. Except, she saw, it wasn’t a tether at all, but a spell. There was no child on the other end of that line, siphoning her spirit like milk through a straw—but it was the same. A dark magic binding.

  Closer the ghost came, and closer still, white teeth visible through the dark slashes of her lips as her smile grew wider.

  “And here I thought finding you would be difficult. I suppose you’re not clever enough for that.” The ghost tsked. “Ah, well. Makes my life easier.”

  It was Shai who replied, moving to intercept the Enforcer. “Stay back,” she said. Perhaps she meant to sound hard, or menacing. She sounded afraid.

  Xhea stopped abruptly as her shoulder blades hit concrete—the wall that she’d thought might shelter her. It was no shelter now, only a trap, closing off her limited avenues of escape.

  She’s just a ghost, Xhea told herself. There’s nothing she can do.

  The words felt like lies—for as she stared at the Enforcer’s blurred face and the fierce halo of her hair, she realized she could feel the ghost before her. She felt stronger, more real, than any of the dead but Shai; something about her drew Xhea’s eye and attention both, luring her in.

  No, she realized. She didn’t feel the ghost, but the hidden spell she bore.

  “Run,” Shai cried, diving between Xhea and the Enforcer. Shai’s hands were already raised, shining with magic, as she made herself into a barrier through which the other ghost might not pass.

  Too late.

  The ghostly Enforcer had no magic of her own, neither bright nor dark; it did not matter. As Shai made to strike her down, the woman simply pushed, her hands hitting Shai in the chest as her leg swept Shai’s feet from under her.

  The move shouldn’t have worked—neither ghost was subject to gravity’s dictates—and yet the beliefs of the living died hard. Shai tumbled, fell—and the other ghost caught her arm and cast her away, as if she were nothing more than a ball to be thrown. Shai screamed as she flew.

  In the scuffle, Xhea tried to escape. But, despite the plastic brace, her knee buckled beneath the strain of sudden movement. Xhea cried out and nearly fell, catching herself at the last minute and swearing all the while.

  When she looked up, the Enforcer stood before her. The ghost raised her hand to the center of her chest where her tether was bound—and where, hidden inside her heart, a spell waited. A dark magic spell, shining like a dark pearl—and something else. At the gesture, the spell emerged into the ghost’s hand; a flick, and it was airborne.

  The spell expanded into a great, shimmering net that enfolded Xhea as it fell. She felt as each of that net’s strands touched her skin, sinking through the fabric of her jacket and pants as if they were nothing. The spell burned.

  Xhea opened her mouth in a soundless scream. Her knees gave way, suddenly boneless, and her bad knee twisted as she crumpled.

  Sprawled on the ground, Xhea wanted to writhe, to scratch at her skin—anything to escape the burning spell that crawled over her and sank into her flesh. But she could not move; she only lay there, paralyzed, gasping for breath.

  Above, the Towers glittered as they danced, spinning almost imperceptibly around the Central Spire. As she watched, the Messenger rose, the spells around him flaring like shining wings and sending him soaring skyward. He had never once touched the ground.

  “Bye now,” said the ghost of the Enforcer. Her blurred lips formed a thin and terrible smile, and then she was yanked into the air in the wake of the departing Messenger.

  As the spell sank into her, Xhea did not surrender to unconsciousness; she fought it all the way down. And lost.

  Shai flew, tumbling, disoriented. She had no sense of ground or sky; only of motion, sudden and swift, and something that was almost like pain, echoing through her.

  No, she thought. Xhea!

  It was only as she fell to the pavement—fell through it—that she remembered gravity did not affect her; nor should the other ghost’s blow. It was instinct and a lifetime of experience that made her flail and fall. Shai halted her wild descent, then rose, reorienting herself. Angry voices swelled as the Messenger’s last words echoed through the Lower City, creating a confusing cacophony of sound.

  Shai had been prepared for an attack—had woven defensive spells in newborn reflex—and then the ghost had just… hit her. She’d never been hit before. It hurt.

  Except, she couldn’t quite say what hurt, or how. Strange as the feeling of the ghost striking her chest and kicking out her legs had been, the pain didn’t seem to come from those points of impact. Rather it washed over her, through her; pain without focus or source.

  Xhea’s pain, she realized. And it grew worse by the minute.

  Since they had been rejoined, both she and Xhea had noticed a change in the nature of their link—one that went further than the transfer of magic, bright and dark, that happened naturally. Other things occasionally traveled that length: emotions, sometimes, or thoughts, faint and strangely blurred by transmission.

  What she felt now? There was no softening of that pain’s edges; only sensation, r
aw and ragged, that raged down the tether and into Shai’s chest. She flinched from it, breath gone short. Or, if this was Xhea’s pain blunted, she dared not think what Xhea felt.

  Shai caught her bearings. There was the corner of the fallen building with its alcove—and there, on the ground before it, was a dark, huddled lump. Xhea. Of the Enforcer ghost there was no sign; only the spell she’d cast remained, a glittering net that settled over Xhea’s fallen body.

  Settled over her, and sank into her.

  With a cry Shai flew to her friend’s side, her own magic flaring in response to her sudden fear. Xhea lay as if boneless, mostly on her back, her cane some distance from her outstretched hand. Her head was turned to the side, her hair a wild tangle around her face, coins and charms glinting.

  “Xhea?” Again Shai called, and again. No response, not so much as a twitch. Unconscious, Shai thought—though she could feel some echo of Xhea’s pain washing through her.

  But it was the spell that held Shai’s attention—or what was left of it. For what moments before had been a gleaming net of bright magic had become but glints and glimmers of light spread across Xhea’s exposed skin. The rest had already been absorbed. No wonder she’s in pain. As Shai made to grab for the spell, thinking to pull it from Xhea’s face—to unravel it, unmake it, get it off her—even those thin strands flickered and faded.

  Xhea’s dark magic had burned the spell away to nothing.

  Shai exhaled in relief. “She’ll be all right,” she murmured. With the spell gone, Xhea’s pain would ease and she would wake. Whatever the ghostly Enforcer—or whoever had sent her—had intended with that spell didn’t matter now. They’d failed. Xhea was going to be fine.

  And yet…

  Shai’s hand went to the spelled tether that joined them, her brow creasing. For, though Xhea’s pain had momentarily eased, it was now returning—a sharper, edged pain. Shai cringed as its echo stabbed into the pit of her stomach.

  She looked deeper.

  Shai had thought the spell was a net of bright magic. But as that net burned away, a second spell was released: one of dark, coiled magic, sinuous and slow. As Shai stared, that power sank into Xhea’s blood and flowed through her body, darkening her hands and arms and face like a spreading stain.

  Delivery system, Shai thought in shock, and payload.

  She knew how to read bright magic spells clear as any book; she was even learning how to weave them. Yet though she could see that it was a spell and not pure dark magic that flowed through Xhea, Shai could no more understand it than she could one of the ancient, forgotten tongues.

  Having infiltrated Xhea’s body, the spell contracted, its power concentrating in Xhea’s chest like a storm cloud.

  Shai did not know what it was doing, or why, and she did not care. For as the spell worked, Xhea’s skin went waxen pale and her lips darkened with a tint of blue. Sweat broke out across her forehead and dribbled down her cheeks like tears, and her eyes flickered beneath their closed lids as if she were caught in some terrible dream.

  “Stop it.” Shai wished she sounded strong rather than frightened. Wished she could force that strange dark magic to respond to her command. “Stop it!”

  She reached, her own magic flaring. No spell there, no clever weavings of thought and image and memory; only need and the raw force of her power.

  I’m sorry, Shai thought, and stabbed a ray of bright magic into Xhea’s chest as if it were a blade.

  There was pain then—hers, Xhea’s, it was all the same. Shai struggled to think, struggled to keep her power flowing. Still she reached, grabbing the dark magic clotting beneath Xhea’s breastbone and slicing through it with ease of breath. Dark magic could destroy bright, yes—but enough bright magic could also burn away the dark, sure as night yielded to sunlight. One only needed enough power, and the will to wield it.

  Strength of power Shai had never lacked—and will? Anything, it seemed, might be learned.

  Shai shredded the dark spell, wincing at the pain of every cut—gritting her teeth and shouting, as if the sound might make that power flee in terror. She cut it away from Xhea’s hands and heart and face, ribbons of magic dispersing like smoke from windblown candles. She cut and cut and cut.

  And watched as the spell regrew.

  No, Shai realized, drawing back in horror. It had tapped into the wellspring of Xhea’s power and now turned her own magic against her, using it as fuel to rebuild the spell-strands that Shai had torn away.

  Shai could do nothing to stop it—only watched as that magic wrapped around Xhea and coiled tighter like a noose.

  The pain was less, now; Shai could draw breath without wincing. It was no relief. On the ground, Xhea shook and trembled as if she were freezing. Her lips were blue, and her fingernails; her eyelids seemed almost bruised.

  A noise made Shai look up—a concussive bang that echoed around the ruined market like rattled stones, followed by screams. The crowd had only grown in the Messenger’s absence.

  Perhaps some people had run to find shelter or loved ones—or even to follow the Spire’s command. But more had gathered here or come to stand in the streets nearby, and now raged up at the Spire’s lowermost point. Shai could not understand what the crowd shouted, only listened as their voices grew louder until it seemed the very ground should tremble with the force of that anger, that fear and hate and rage.

  What she’d heard had only been a firework, she realized; smoke trailed above the crowd. But it might have as easily been a weapon or a spell; it might have been a rock hurled toward the Spire only to come tumbling down on the heads of those gathered.

  Shai felt a wash of fear that wasn’t for herself, wasn’t even for Xhea. This crowd was angry and only getting angrier. Soon there would be bruises and blood—if not worse.

  The crowd, too, was pushing closer. Xhea lay near the wall’s shelter; the fallen building’s rubble formed a low barrier that would slow any approach. Even so, with people flooding into the burned-out market—and the number who already shouted, red-faced, with their ash-blackened fists raised to the sky—Xhea might be trampled in minutes.

  Again Shai turned to her, wishing she could gather Xhea in her arms and carry her away. Away from the crowd, the burned market, the Lower City—all of it. The desire was so strong it nearly clogged her throat. Or perhaps, she realized, swallowing, that’s the tears.

  “Oh, don’t cry,” she said, disgusted. What would Xhea say if she saw her like this, crouched and curled and weeping?

  Xhea’s eyelids flickered, opened.

  “Xhea?” Shai cried. But Xhea was not waking. Her eyes rolled back in her head until only thin slivers of white showed, and she began to convulse. Shai swore and did the only thing she could think of: she wove a spell to cushion Xhea’s head, keeping her from harm until the seizure had passed.

  Even as Shai lowered Xhea’s head gently back to the pavement, she tried to think of a way to make that spell bigger, more powerful—something strong enough to lift and carry Xhea’s whole body.

  As if no one would notice an unconscious girl floating by.

  And if they did—what would they do? Shai did not know, only feared it as the crowd grew and surged around her, all those voices becoming one great roar.

  Not knowing what else to do, Shai wove a shield spell like the one she’d used to protect the market from the brunt of Rown’s magical attack. This shield was much smaller, only arcing over Xhea and the cane at her side, with the edge closest to the broken wall open to let in air.

  As the spell came into being, the noise level dropped. It was no blessing. For now Shai could hear Xhea’s breath: thin and faltering gasps that became thinner and weaker by the moment.

  Are they killing her? Was that what the spell had been for—Xhea’s slow but certain death? Because if so, it was a horrible way to die; even Rown’s hunters might grant a more merciful death with the serrated edge of one of their blades.

  Shai reached again for the spelled tether, suddenly thinkin
g: if she could not slice away the dark spell from the outside, perhaps she could destroy it from the inside out. She made her power flow inward, no longer shining but funneled through the tether that joined them. Into that power, too, she channeled all the feelings that churned within her, that fear and desperate hope, as if emotion were a lifeline that she might cast for Xhea to grab.

  There was no pain now, no hurt—but nothing else came in its wake. Where Shai usually felt some measure of Xhea’s magic flow back into her, as if repaying the power she provided, now there was nothing, not even an echo of dark.

  Still she poured all of her magic down their link—enough magic to shield a skyscraper or save a man’s life; enough magic to fuel a Tower, enough magic to set the sky alight with gold and green and blue. Enough magic, she hoped, to keep her friend here—living, breathing. With her.

  She felt, too, as the tether that unspooled from her heart grew stronger, wider, that length of near-invisible energy shimmering between them like heat from flat metal.

  Stay with me. Shai watched as Xhea’s breathing faltered. Please, stay with me.

  At last, the dark spell writhing in Xhea grew still.

  Shai stared at it, buried deep within Xhea’s chest, but could not tell where the spell ended and Xhea’s magic began. Yet that magic? She shuddered to see it. For once where power had filled Xhea, dark and steady, now there was only a small point of perfect, darkest black. A hard stone of magic caught in the chambers of her heart.

  A long moment passed, then Xhea drew a shuddering breath, and another. Some of the painful tension left her limbs, and her shivering, spasming muscles relaxed to let her lie bonelessly, sprawled across the ashen pavement.

  It should have been a relief—and it was, knowing that Xhea lived. Watching as her breathing steadied and slowed; watching as the blue left her lips. But she did not look well and she did not wake.

  Around them, the crowd grew and grew. So many voices were raised in anger, in fear—and there was no easy outlet for those emotions. Haven’t we been through enough? Shai thought to them, seeing their twisted faces, their hands raised with fists or weapons high. But it was to the Central Spire to which those words were best directed; the golden Spire that floated, serene, oblivious, at the heart of the City above.