Towers Fall

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  She did not understand what they had done to Xhea, or why. She did not understand the Spire’s command, sudden and immovable. She did not know what they wanted with this broken ground, or these burned and fallen buildings, or the ruins beyond.

  No one did. And as they screamed and raged, wept and ran, Shai huddled over Xhea’s body and held her—or tried to.

  For when she reached out to touch Xhea’s cheek, that golden skin gone waxen and pale, her fingers passed through as if she were barely real. Shai gasped and drew back, more shocked than when she’d been struck.

  “No.” Shai reached for Xhea’s hand—wanting to touch those fingers that curled toward Xhea’s palm like a flower’s wilting petals. Wanting to hold Xhea’s hand in her own, as she had so many times before. Yet though she felt resistance, it was only like passing her fingers through sand.

  “Absent gods, Xhea,” Shai whispered. “What have they done to you?”

  There came a knock on the shield spell.

  Shai jumped and turned.

  Behind her stood Torrence, the sandy-haired bounty hunter who had worked to abduct Shai and Xhea both—and had succeeded in stealing Xhea but weeks before. They were allies now, Xhea had told her; Shai failed to believe it.

  Torrence stood casually, his hand upraised to knock, every line of his posture saying that he cared not a whit for the people who ran and pushed and shouted but feet away. His eyes, and whatever truths they might tell, were hidden behind a pair of dark, battered glasses—artifacts, Shai thought, or something modeled on an ancient design. No City citizen would create, never mind wear, anything half so garish.

  Behind him like a hulking shadow stood his partner, Daye.

  Since Farrow’s fall, the pair had tried to tail Xhea day and night—attempting, they said, to protect her, and only seeming to achieve a mutual feeling of frustration. “Listen,” Xhea had told them at one point. “You were the ones trying to abduct me. Now you’ve stopped. There, problem solved.”

  Torrence had only laughed, while Daye, predictably, had said nothing at all.

  Shai had never liked the pair, no matter what Xhea said. That morning she’d been glad that they managed to slip from Edren’s walls without the bounty hunters. Now, she felt she’d never been so glad to see anyone.

  Torrence knocked again, the spell shivering beneath his knuckles, then seemed to look directly at Shai. Just the glasses, she reassured herself, and felt unnerved nonetheless.

  “Little ghost, little ghost,” Torrence said in a sing-song voice, “Let me come in. Or I’ll huff—”

  Daye pushed him aside, none too gently. “Is she hurt?” Daye asked.

  The woman’s voice was quiet, but clipped and hard. She didn’t bother to search for Shai, nor try to direct her words toward her. Daye only stared at Xhea, her eyes intense despite her impassive impression. In spite of everything, Shai liked her better for it.

  She dropped the spell, and the crowd’s roar rushed over her like a wave. Torrence stood straighter and gave a quick nod.

  “Spell’s down,” he said, suddenly all business. Daye moved to kneel at Xhea’s side.

  She did a visual inspection first, scanning Xhea’s outstretched arms and curled legs, the length of her torso hidden beneath her oversized jackets with its many pockets. Eyes narrowed, she watched the rise and fall of Xhea’s breathing, then leaned close to peer at her face. At last she reached to feel Xhea’s pulse—and when Daye’s fingers touched Xhea’s neck, the woman did not stiffen or jump, only hesitated then drew back slowly, as if surprised.

  “What is it?” Torrence asked.

  “I can touch her.”

  Shai stared, aghast, but Torrence only shrugged. “Well, that makes things easier.”

  He stooped to grab Xhea’s cane as Daye knelt and gathered Xhea in her arms. Shai could only watch, feeling anxious, useless, as Torrence scanned the area—and drew his knife.

  It was not like Daye’s knives, the wicked blades that she wore on each hip. Knives, Shai knew, that Daye had used to stab Mercks, supervisor of Edren’s night watch, before she left him to die alone in the cold and dark of the underground. Torrence’s blade was short and tapered, no longer than a man’s finger; though the way it glinted in the sunlight made Shai stiffen nonetheless.

  What is he…?

  He can’t…

  The thoughts did not form, only anger, fueled by her growing anxiety. The last thing this day needed was blood.

  “If you don’t want anyone to get hurt, ghost girl,” Torrence said in her direction, his eyes hidden beneath the dark glasses, “you might want to help clear the way.”

  He can see me, she realized, shocked.

  Then Shai pushed such thoughts aside—for as Daye lifted Xhea into her arms and stood, her friend gave a low, frightened noise like an animal in pain. Xhea’s brow creased, yet her eyes remained closed; and her hands, curled now together and tucked close to Daye’s chest, trembled.

  Again Shai touched the tether that joined them and sent a wave of magic and reassurance down that length.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered—and then wondered whether she meant the words to comfort Xhea or herself.

  “Quickly now,” Torrence said. Cane in one hand, knife in the other, he stepped into the crowd. He did not lead with his weapon but with his shoulders, moving almost like a dancer as he pushed people aside and cleared a path for Daye to follow. Shai’s fingers danced in sudden inspiration: if she twisted her shield spell just so, and made it smaller, more maneuverable, she could nudge this man aside and stop this woman from walking forward…

  Step by careful step, they made their way to safety.

  Xhea opened her eyes. Blinked, cringed, and thought better of the idea.

  She lay for a long moment in the blessed darkness behind her eyelids, feeling the ground hard and uneven beneath her, hearing an angry crowd some distance away. Closer, there were the sounds of many footsteps—a road?—and a hushed conversation.

  Don’t want to move, she thought. As long as she stayed motionless, nothing hurt. Even her scarred knee felt strangely numb.

  She’d lie here forever if she could, swaddled and safe in this strange drifting state, this place where pain was only a memory. But she rarely got what she wanted.

  Xhea cracked open a cautious eye. She lay in an alley between two crumbling brick buildings, the scents of moss and mold and stagnant water thick in the late summer air. Above her were crisscrossed laundry lines heavy with sheets and clothes. Prayer flags—long scraps of cloth patterned with charms—hung limply from a nearby window, bleached pale by sun and rain and snow.

  Nearby, Shai paced. The ghost seemed anxious; her feet were six inches off the ground, and when she turned at the end of each line of steps, her shoulder passed through the brick wall of the flanking building.

  Closer, sitting behind her, Xhea could just make out two shapes, their shadows stretched across her. Low voices murmured.

  She felt like she used to when she’d used bright magic as a drug, unknowingly keeping her own power at bay. This was like the moment when the bright magic had dwindled to nothing, the color leached from her vision, her euphoria burned to ash and weary lethargy; the moment just before the headache came, and the shakes.

  Sweetness, she thought. What happened?

  Memory later; sitting first. Xhea forced herself upright—and groaned as a wave of dizziness all but knocked her unconscious again. Clutching her head, she sagged back to the ground, swearing.

  “Xhea!” Shai rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”

  “Ow,” Xhea muttered. She held her head until the dizziness passed, then rubbed her eyes as if to scrub away any desire to close them again. Then slowly, slowly, she pushed her way back to sitting.

  “Ah,” said a voice from behind her. “Not dead after all.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed, Torrence.”

  She made to turn, but Shai was closer, the ghost pressing into Xhea’s space with a near-panicked ex
pression.

  “Are you all right? How do you—I mean, are you—?”

  “It’s okay, Shai,” Xhea said quietly. What happened? she thought again. She hadn’t seen Shai this upset since… well, since she’d thought that Xhea was about to die. And, no matter how strange she felt, death didn’t seem terribly close. “I’m okay, just a bit dizzy.”

  She reached for Shai’s hand. Shai all but grabbed her—then yanked her hand back as if burned.

  What—?

  But her fingers, Xhea saw, were trembling. Right on time.

  Trying to hide that weakness, Xhea placed her hands on the damp ground and pushed herself around until her back rested against the nearest building. The alley was wider than her legs outstretched, but not by much.

  Blocking the alley’s mouth sat Torrence and Daye—though of the latter, Xhea could see only her back. Daye watched the street beyond, a knife unsheathed on her lap, her hands resting on her knees, still as stone. Xhea caught glimpses of people in the street, some of them with arms laden with clothing and other belongings, most of them running.

  Torrence watched her quietly, his eyes hidden behind night-black glasses.

  “No escaping you, is there?” Xhea said. She meant it as a joke, but the words fell heavily into the silence between them.

  Torrence said softly, “No, darlin’, there isn’t—and you should be glad for that.”

  “What happened?”

  “We thought you could tell us. Something knocked you flat, and your friend there,” he nodded toward Shai, “hasn’t been able to tell us what. But she’s pretty upset.”

  Xhea said the first thing that came into her head: “You can see her?”

  “I think he can see my magic,” Shai said at the same time that Torrence replied, “Stop changing the subject.”

  Xhea raised an eyebrow. Sore point, Torrence?

  The bounty hunter’s vision had been damaged in Ieren’s attack in Farrow, when the dark magic boy had attempted to pull Torrence’s spirit out of his living body through his eyes. Had Ieren succeeded, Xhea’s sometime-ally would have become food: his ghost devoured in an attempt to balance the power of Ieren’s dark magic, while his body would have been empty, living. A night walker.

  The attack had sensitized him to light and magic, but she’d thought that he wore the sunglasses only to hide some unsightly damage to his eyes themselves. Poor as he was, Torrence had been nearly magic-blind, only able to see magic spelled to be visible—but now he could see Shai unaided. Bright as the ghost was to Xhea, only powerful magic users could catch a glimpse of Shai—or, rather, of her Radiant magic.

  Interesting, Xhea thought, glancing from Shai to Torrence and back again. And, she realized, not the point.

  Because something in Daye’s watchful pose and the chaos of the street beyond—something in Shai’s frantic worry, and the strange feeling in Xhea’s head and heart and hands—made her remember. The Messenger.

  “Three days,” she whispered.

  The Enforcer ghost—and the spell. She remembered that net of light arcing over her, remembered the searing pain as it wrapped around her. Remembered, too, the ghost’s blurred smile and her mocking wave as she departed.

  There was no sign of that spell now, though she pushed up her sleeves to check; no sign, either, of its purpose. Just a spell to knock her out, she supposed—make her easier to transport. Yet if that had been the first stage of an abduction, it had been foiled—little though she wanted to admit that to the bounty hunters.

  “Xhea.” Shai made an effort to hide her fear. “Can you use your magic?”

  “For what?”

  “Anything. Anything at all.”

  Xhea frowned but lifted her hand, palm up, and called her magic to her—and then stared. Where there should have been a ribbon of black power, there was nothing. Not so much as a wisp.

  Harder she tried, and harder, attempting to force her magic to flow. Anger, she thought—for that had always bid her power to rise; but no matter the emotion, her hand remained empty.

  At last she understood why she kept remembering the first moments when a payment had burned from her. Those were the times when she’d been most empty: no bright magic left, and her dark magic forced down as far as it would go. The times, she’d once thought, that she was almost normal.

  “I think they bound your magic,” Shai said.

  Bound, she realized, as her mother had done all those years ago: wrapped a spell around Xhea’s power so tight that it seemed she had no magic at all. Yet that had been a weaker spell; Xhea, too, had been weaker, smaller. Given how her power had grown in the brief time since she’d snapped that binding, she would have thought it impossible to force it back down. Otherwise, wouldn’t the Spire bind all of their dark magic users for a time, to prolong the children’s lives?

  Yet clearly it was possible. Xhea stared at her empty palm and no matter how she reached for her magic, she felt only its weight, hard and cold within her.

  “What happened?” Torrence asked again. “The Lower City is up in arms over the Spire’s announcement, and to find you in the middle of it…” He shook his head. “That’s no coincidence, darlin’.”

  Xhea explained in curt, clipped sentences what had happened: the ghost’s appearance from the Messenger’s shadow and the spell she’d cast; her own pain and paralysis before passing out. She relayed, too, what Shai said had happened after. Bare though the ghost’s tale was, Xhea heard in her voice an echo of her panic.

  Xhea realized, too, that she was probably the only living person in the Lower City who understood why the Spire wanted to attack. That was more important than what had been done to her, or why.

  “We’re—what? About four blocks from Edren?” She recognized the alley now, though it wasn’t part of her usual territory. Wasn’t, either, anywhere on the normal route between the market and Edren.

  Torrence nodded. “The streets are messy. Getting even this far was, shall we say, not the easiest. At least not with you unconscious.”

  “You carried me?”

  “Daye.”

  Daye had a pain tolerance roughly equal to that of a stone wall. Xhea had seen the woman take more than her share of blows—had even seen her stabbed in the muscled flesh of her arm with little more reaction than a grimace of distaste. She’d carried Xhea once before, when they’d been inside Farrow, and though Xhea’s magic had been exhausted and there had been layers of cloth between them, it had clearly not been a comfortable experience.

  But this? There were blocks and blocks between them and the market, and that trip would have been slowed further by the crowd and the burden of Xhea’s body.

  Are you okay? Xhea caught the words before she spoke them, choked them back. Instead she said, “Well, that must have felt great.”

  Daye did not shift or turn, only lifted her shoulders in a fractional shrug.

  Torrence explained: “Your touch doesn’t hurt. Not like it once did, anyway. A little discomfort, some numbness. It’s easier to touch you now than when we first met, years ago.” He sounded almost apologetic.

  Of course, she thought. Because of the blighted binding.

  Xhea shook her head, frustrated. At least she still had the ability to see ghosts. At least she could still see. However much they bound her magic, no one could make her anything other than what she was.

  At least the spell had not damaged her connection to Shai. Even bound, magic flowed between them, though Xhea doubted that Shai received anything more than a trickle of power from her. Their connection, it seemed, was more powerful than anything cast against them.

  Yet Xhea’s only real power had been stolen from her. She was suddenly as she’d always thought herself: a small girl with no magic, only the strange and sickly talent of seeing ghosts.

  No, less. She couldn’t even walk unaided.

  Xhea took a deep breath and pushed her despair away, like a dark secret she could close in a box and ignore. Bigger problems, she reminded herself, than your own fe
elings of inadequacy.

  “I can walk now,” she said. “We need to get to Edren. I need to talk to Lorn.”

  Torrence gave a mocking grin. “I think he’s going to have a few more things on his plate than what happened to you, darling girl.”

  Xhea glared. “Everyone knows that the Spire’s going to destroy the Lower City,” she said, “but I know why.” Or, at least, she knew what the living Lower City had told her in that overwhelming rush of thoughts and impressions, tangled images and memories.

  Torrence blinked, and Daye turned around slowly—not to look at Xhea, but at her partner. Daye’s face was impassive as ever, and yet Xhea got the impression that she was laughing at him.

  He seemed to come to the same conclusion, and waved his hand at Daye as if shooing away a fly.

  “Well,” he said, rising, “why didn’t you say so?” He handed Xhea her cane with a flourish, then bowed and gestured toward the alley’s mouth. “After you.”

  The way to Edren was blocked by angry crowds. Xhea followed in the bounty hunters’ wake, letting them slice through the edges of that crowd like a knife through soft flesh.

  Some people were heading toward the burned-out market—or, perhaps, toward the Spire itself, though its bottommost tip was a few hundred feet from the ground. Others carried weapons on their belts or slung over their shoulders, some already drawn as if to threaten absent aggressors. One man even carried a heavy length of pipe with its end sharpened into a crude point, though it was obviously unbalanced and useless as a spear.

  And what are you going to do with that? she thought to him scornfully as she limped past. Throw it in the Spire’s general direction until they relent? More rage than sense, in her estimation; but that was cause enough to give the whole lot a wide berth.

  Yet just as many people appeared to be running away, toward homes or families. Some few, their arms full with belongings, appeared to be heading to the ruins already.