Towers Fall

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  “Listen,” Xhea said. “Hear them.”

  But what she meant was, Trust them. And oh, it would be hard; she knew that more than anyone. How many times had she rejected help because she would not, could not trust the hand that offered it? There were too many strings attached—too many times when everything had gone horribly, dangerously wrong for her to place faith blindly.

  The Lower City was stronger than she had been, but also lonelier. It wanted what was offered in that outstretched field of magic, no matter that it feared it in equal measure.

  Though its power surged through the Spire like breath and blood, no longer did it strike out. Instead it reached—slowly, hesitantly—and touched the swirling magic that Allenai sent.

  Allenai, and so many other Towers.

  Power flared, bright and dark, and Xhea thought of her hand touching Shai’s. Sound rose in a great inhuman chorus.

  What the Towers said, Xhea could not understand, nor could Shai—neither in sight nor sound. But the Lower City, could—and did—and Xhea heard the echoes of their meaning in the sudden rush of the Lower City’s song.

  Our sibling, the Towers said. Our friend.

  Beloved stranger.

  We welcome you.

  As if the Lower City were not an attacking force, not a threat or danger, but the family member they had never known they’d had. Such joy in that sound—and such joy in hearing it.

  Beneath Xhea’s feet, Farrow shuddered. Not an earthquake; compared to all that had come before, it was little more than a shiver. Xhea looked down and placed her hands once more against that black-wrapped surface, thinking of the magic Shai had sent down to the small, starving Tower. If she concentrated, she could just feel a faint whisper of bright magic against her palms, faintly warm, like the touch of sunlight on a cool day.

  Farrow, living. Its bright heart tarnished with shadow.

  She did not mean to speak—and yet she did nonetheless, though her lips were silent. Magic lifted from her skin like steam, and it seemed that power now held her every thought, every whisper of memory that skittered across her consciousness.

  Xhea felt some fragment of the Lower City’s attention turn back to her—and to small, black-bound Farrow beneath her. Felt as it plucked that image—Farrow’s heart, shining gray—from her mind as if it were but a fresh, ripe apple, left unattended in the market.

  For a moment, she felt only its surprise. Then there came a rush of sound, a surge of dark.

  “What are you—?” She had no chance to finish.

  Because the ground in every direction was suddenly moving—not shaking, but melting, sinking into the earth. There were no ruins, no heaped piles of rubble that had once been homes, buildings, skyscrapers; there was, very suddenly, only a great sea of roiling black.

  Then the Lower City reached again, its magic pouring up through the Spire to blanket the City above. It was speaking, she thought, as if the power that spread like a dark stain across the sky could truly be understood as words.

  This time, only a few Towers struggled to evade that grasp, defensive spells flashing. The rest surrendered to it, or welcomed it, she knew not which.

  She had thought—

  She had believed—

  It didn’t matter, because they were falling—the Towers were falling, dark magic guiding them toward the ground.

  Something vast blotted out the sky. Xhea looked up—and gasped. Allenai was directly above her, descending, its lowermost defensive point stabbing down as if it wished to pierce Xhea’s heart.

  She lifted her hands on instinct, as if hands alone might do anything to stop the weight of that massive living building from crushing her as it fell. She wanted to scream but could not shape the sound; it caught within her throat like a hard, round stone.

  Xhea wanted to scream but instead she laughed, for she had been here before. In dream she had relived this moment over and over, standing beneath Allenai when all had seemed lost. Sometimes, in dream as in memory, Shai was there, her power flaring around her like wings. Sometimes Xhea fell to safety. Sometimes she only fell.

  Shai was not here now. Out in the ruins that defensive ring blazed bright, protecting the refugees from the destruction of the City, and Shai was the key to that spell. There would be no last-minute salvation at her friend’s hands.

  Yet Xhea looked up and touched the tether, sending that image of Allenai above her wrapped in shadow and light, falling, falling to crush her.

  Together, was all she said—and the reply? Beneath the sorrow, beneath the fear, Shai sent only a rush of emotion in reply: love and acceptance and pride that wrapped around her like arms, holding her tight and never, ever letting go.

  It was, in the end, all that Xhea had ever wanted.

  She closed her eyes and lowered her hands, and in the final moment before Allenai’s impact, Xhea smiled.

  Xhea lay quiet, magic shining full upon her like sunlight.

  Thoughts were slow in forming. Perhaps she slept; perhaps she dreamed. If so, she did not want to wake.

  She heard a sound like gentle music, a sound like water flowing and wind through leaves. The air smelled like it had been washed clean by rain. Her hands rested at her sides, her legs stretched out, her head pillowed by something soft. And for all that magic shone down upon her, brilliant and flaring, it did not hurt.

  She did not hurt.

  Not her skin or her heart or her knee; not the countless cuts and bruises on her hands and arms. Not any of it. The lack of pain was a relief beyond words, and for a moment longer Xhea just drifted, lost and glad for that oblivion.

  At last, she opened her eyes.

  Shai stood above her, smiling down. She shone, her light Radiant—but above her was something brighter. A horizon of light, stretching as far as she could see.

  “Am I dead?” Xhea asked. She was surprised how hopeful she sounded. But then, death could be a gift, too, at the end. A laying down of burdens. A last breath, soft and slow.

  Maybe she didn’t have to fight anymore. Maybe she didn’t have to hurt.

  Shai said, “Not quite. Not yet.”

  The ghost held out her hand and Xhea took it without thought or hesitation. Shai helped her to sit.

  No, not dead, Xhea thought, looking down at herself. For though she was clean, she still wore the ragged remains of her clothing, the fabric of her beloved jacket, her practical pants and top, worn down to thin scraps by dark magic. Her knee brace was but bands of decaying fabric that wrapped around her leg like ribbons, crumbling pieces all that was left of the plastic spars that had once joined them. Her boots were gone entirely; she wiggled her bare toes.

  Her hair fell about her shoulders and down her back, unbraided and unbound. As she turned her head, looking around, she was surprised at how light it felt, shorn of its coins and charms. In this quiet, she missed the old chime and clatter of her movement.

  She sat now upon a smooth, dark gray platform; her legs, dangling, did not reach the floor. There were walls, also gray, yet they seemed impossibly far away.

  She blinked, frowning at those walls. They were not smooth, not flat and featureless, but made of countless strands like vines, twining around each other as they rose. No, she thought, looking higher. Not vines but trees. Their dark branches arched high overhead, leaves rustling.

  Beneath that ceiling of branches and leaves flared a living heart of bright magic.

  “Where am I?”

  “Allenai,” Shai said. “Or Farrow. Or maybe the Lower City.” She smiled, as if this made any sort of sense. “It’s a bit confused about what to call itself right now.”

  “It’s not the only one who’s confused.”

  “Look down.”

  Xhea did, peering at the ground beneath her dangling feet. The walls were dark tree trunks, the ceiling those trees’ leaves and branches; she expected the ground to be roots. It was not. Instead it was smooth and dark, polished almost to a mirror shine; looking down, she could see a hint of her own reflection, and th
e tangled halo of her unbound hair.

  She opened her mouth to speak—and hesitated.

  For beneath the reflection of her face and the bright light of the heart far above her, there was something else. Xhea gripped the edges of the platform on which she sat, because suddenly she felt as if she were falling. The floor seemed to fall away and she could see down, down, as if that ground wasn’t there at all. There was only a deep, empty hole.

  No, not a hole—but darkness. Living, flaring darkness.

  But it was not a heart—or, rather, not just a heart. Not a single point of darkness, as the heart above was a point of light, but something larger and more diffuse.

  That power, too, had fundamentally changed; she did not need to conjure magic of her own to see the difference. It was still dark, but less so than the magic that might rise from her outstretched hand. It was no longer midnight black, no longer the darkness that waited in the deepest tunnels where no hint of sun or moon might shine. It was the dark hour before dawn; it was the night sky, glittering with stars.

  Slowly, Xhea looked up.

  The Tower heart that flared above her was bright; she had to raise her hand to shield her eyes from the glare. But she could look directly at it, and, staring, saw patterns in that light. Perhaps, to anyone else, those shapes had color. For her? It seemed only that, within that swirling heart of bright magic, there flowed ribbons of darkness.

  Tarnished, she had thought, seeing Farrow’s heart; tainted, she had said. This was neither. It was beautiful.

  And, she realized again, it did not hurt.

  Perhaps it would be different, were she closer. With that magic like a fog in the air around her, drawn deep with every breath—with that magic sent straight into her, like a shock of lightning—she was certain it would be different. But here, now? That power was only warm, gentle light.

  As she watched, power flowed from the ground up through those reaching branches to the bright heart; and power shone down, down, soaking into the darkness. Power flowed between them, one to the other, as it did between her and Shai.

  Xhea had thought that they could not exist in the same place; that they repelled one another, unmade one another. She unraveled bright spells, destroyed things with a touch—while Shai could burn away even a hint of that darkness.

  And it was true—at least for raw power, pure magic shaped only into spells. But living power? The magic not of things, but people, freely shared? That, it seemed, was something else entirely.

  Magic, she thought, and spirit. Each a part of the other.

  Understanding, Xhea had no words. She looked to Shai, her face alight with wonder.

  “I think we were an inspiration,” Shai said softly.

  Xhea laughed, and felt tears prick her eyes. “Me,” she said in disbelief. “An inspiration. Imagine that.” Perhaps stranger things had happened, but she could not think of any.

  “What did they do?” she asked instead. “How did they—I mean, when…”

  Instead, Shai offered Xhea her hand once more, helping her stand. “Come,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

  Xhea’s cane had not been found; or if it had, it had not been returned to her. Of all the things lost, for a moment that seemed the worst. Or, rather, that loss was easiest to understand.

  Lacking its support, she clung to Shai’s hand as she walked, and she felt the subtle spells that Shai wove to bear the weight that neither Xhea nor Shai’s ghostly arm could hold. Spells, too, wrapped around her knee, and their presence just tingled; they did not hurt.

  Oh, the wonder of that.

  At the far side of the vast room there was an arch that led out to a hall and, eventually, a balcony, daylight just beyond. Xhea stepped cautiously outside.

  The sun was setting. For a moment, that was all Xhea could see—the only thing that made any sense.

  “How long?” Xhea asked at last. The words came as if from terribly far away.

  “Three days.”

  “Three…?”

  It seemed impossible.

  Three days for the Lower City to fall into ruin. Three days, in truth, for the whole of the City to fall, for all that the Towers had not been warned of their impending end.

  Three days for the City to fall, and three days for the City to rise. For it was the City that stretched now before her in all its glory—but a City fundamentally changed.

  Closest was the Central Spire, its lowermost point embedded deep into the ground. Xhea did not need to see color to know that it was not gold anymore; instead, it was purest, deepest black. It had no living platforms, only stabbed skyward, forming a single, tapering point high above.

  Above that, and all around, there was nothing. The sky was empty but for clouds.

  Except, Xhea saw, that wasn’t quite true. Squinting, she could see a few Towers floating in midair, most so high that they were little more than glints of light, like stars.

  Despite those presences, the sky felt empty, almost desolate. Never before had Xhea looked up and seen anything but Towers. Now? Bare sky. Fluffy clouds. The dark and whirling shapes of birds.

  Some of the Towers had smashed; Xhea saw them out in the badlands. Some were stabbed into the ground, as the Spire was; some tilted or rolled or leaned. Some had shattered entirely, and she cringed at the thought of those impacts and all they entailed.

  Yet those Towers were few. The rest stood as the Spire now stood, joined to the earth.

  Joined to the Lower City.

  Some Towers had clearly merged; they were huge structures now, impossibly vast. Others seemed to have simply landed as they were. Towers great and small rose skyward, their varied shapes making them look like sculptures, glowing against the setting sun.

  She stood, Xhea realized, almost where she had stood before, watching everything crumble and fall around her. This was where Farrow had been; below her was the patch of ground that had once been the Lower City market. Steeling herself, she stepped forward and peered over the edge—gasped and stumbled back, grabbing at Shai and closing her eyes to stop the sudden feeling that the whole world was spinning.

  But even that brief glimpse was enough. This was Farrow; she recognized the black-wrapped shape upon which she stood, reinforced though it was by countless other strands of the Lower City’s grown vines.

  And above? Slowly, Xhea looked up.

  More of those dark vines, that substance made from concrete and asphalt, soil and rock and rubble: the grown-earth flesh of the Lower City itself. They coiled upward, ever higher, and in their grasp was Allenai.

  Except as she looked, Xhea saw that the division was not quite so clear. The Lower City didn’t hold Allenai so much as merge with it, the darkness of those vines giving way to Allenai’s smooth, undulating sides.

  “Allenai claimed Farrow’s heart,” Shai said, answering the questions that Xhea didn’t know how to ask. “They’re one structure now—and growing and changing as we speak.”

  Xhea nodded. Already she could see the truth of that: the Tower shifted shapes as she watched, its movement like cold honey pouring.

  “And the Lower City?”

  “Joined to the Towers. All of them.” Shai touched the spelled tether that even now joined them, one to the other, as if that gesture was explanation enough. Perhaps it was.

  “Three days,” Xhea said again, and shook her head. Even with the City stretched before her, it felt unreal, as if she were only caught in the grips of some weird and wondrous dream. “And me?”

  She did not know how she could have survived, not as she was. Not alone and unprotected; not with the damage her flesh had taken.

  “The Lower City held you,” Shai said. “When it raised the tendrils to take hold of Allenai, it wrapped around you first, like a cocoon. Together, they healed you—or tried to. Even in the midst of everything, it did not want to let you go. But I can be very persuasive.” The ghost smiled at that, the expression only hinting at what those days had been like for her, all the worry and fear and confusion.r />
  Xhea reached again for her hand. Squeezed. I’m sorry, she thought.

  It’s okay, came the reply. Everything’s okay.

  Xhea touched the rippling gray wall at her side, a whisper of power flowing through her palm and into the structure beyond. A moment, and then she heard it: a slow and rising song. It was so different, its sound and rhythms wholly changed, and yet she’d know it anywhere; it was a new song, sung by a familiar voice.

  “Hello,” she whispered, in voice and magic both, and smiled as that sound swelled in greeting.

  It wasn’t just the Lower City that she heard; other voices, too, sang in recognition and echo. Dozens more, hundreds. All the Towers, new and old alike; all the flaring power of their living hearts, and the structures that were their bodies.

  For a moment, Xhea let her awareness flow into them.

  She felt the Towers and the countless lives they held as if they were her body, all their homes and businesses, the gardens and walkways, briefly as much a part of her as her lips or throat or hands. And oh, the chaos that must have reigned in those halls; the structures disrupted, the people displaced, the financial and political systems alike wholly in uproar.

  But those problems were for the people. The Towers themselves just whispered and sang to each other, some speaking and debating, others simply singing. They were, Xhea thought, happy.

  Yet, for all the wonder she felt—seeing the Towers, hearing them, touching some part of their essence—it was in the lower levels where she felt most comfortable, now as in years past. Down she let her consciousness sink, deep into the Lower City.

  Never before had that name been so appropriate.

  The living Lower City had taken possession of all the materials its magic had touched; it owned that space now, the way the Towers owned their walls and floors, and it shaped them into something beautiful. No longer was the Lower City a broken place, every structure on the crumbling edge of ruin; it was something wholly new, a city grown from the ground up.

  Xhea felt as the Lower City shaped homes there—streets and passages, some like buildings and some open to the sky, some reaching up into the Towers themselves—and it sang all the while.