The Severed Tower

by J. Barton Mitchell

“Gallet works,” Ben said. “But it can’t be a wristwatch.”

  “One is,” Mira told him, her eyes finding the oldest one. “But the other looks like a pocket watch. An old one.”

  “Grab it. Hurry,” Ben instructed her.

  No one knew why, but major artifacts didn’t fuse to whatever they were touching like the minor ones did. It was a good thing in time-sensitive situations like this, it meant you didn’t need to use Paste to get them loose. All Mira had to do was reach in and pull the old chronograph out of the shelf—and when she did it vibrated slightly in her hand, which was a good sign. Whatever it did, it was powerful. She smiled and looked down at Ben and saw what she hoped. The barest, most subtle glimpse of excitement in his expression. It wasn’t often you saw it, and Mira relished times like these.

  “This the one you want?” she asked, letting it dangle by the silver chain.

  “Yes,” Ben said, reaching up.

  Mira held it out of his grasp. “You’re sure?”

  “Mira…”

  “I’m just checking,” she told him innocently. “We only get one shot at this. Scale of one to ten, how certain are you that, of all the chronographs in this place, this is—”

  “Mira,” Ben said with intensity. There was a new emotion on his face now. Annoyance. And it was even cuter than the first.

  “Okay, here, take the—”

  The coat hanger her Lexicon strap hung from broke loose from the old cabinet in a shower of splinters.

  Ben rushed forward, valiantly trying to catch Mira, but her momentum was too much. They both went crashing to the floor, Mira on top of him.

  When the dust cleared, he stared up at her with the same, dim annoyance. “As predicted…”

  She stared back down at him—and then was overcome with laughter. Ben didn’t join in, he rarely laughed, but he did smile, and that was worth just as much. They stared at each other, close, inches away, the chronograph and the Time Shift and the major artifacts all around them forgotten.

  Then Mira saw it in his eyes. Something that flickered to life in moments like these, and it stirred the same tension as always. Her smile vanished. She rolled off him and sat up on the floor, dusting herself off.

  Ben did the same. He didn’t say anything, but she could still feel his eyes on her, knew what he was thinking.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “You never want to talk about it.”

  Mira sighed. “Because we’ve already talked about it, Ben. And we agreed.”

  “You agreed,” Ben replied.

  She frowned and looked back at him. “We both agreed. And you know it.”

  Mira and Ben had been tied together since their trial to become Freebooters. Initially it had been because of the Librarian’s decree, a unique stipulation that neither could enter the Strange Lands without the other. Agreeing to the Librarian’s condition was the only way they could become Freebooters, and they had taken it.

  They both knew, however, that even if the requirement was suddenly removed nothing would change. They had a connection now, a stronger one than either had felt for anyone since the invasion, and it had only grown.

  They had given into it only once. And as nice as it had been, they both agreed it could never happen again. What was the point, after all? They had three, maybe four years left before the Tone took them. Developing feelings like those made no sense in the world as it was now. It only made the inevitable that much harder to deal with.

  But still there were moments—like just now—where Mira wondered how much sense it really made.

  When she looked back at him, the old chronograph was clutched in his hand, but his eyes were on her.

  Mira sighed. “Ben—”

  She cut off as a rumbling grew around them, deep and powerful, but somehow it couldn’t be felt. The items on the shelves or the floor didn’t shake. It was as if the air itself was vibrating. And there was something else. It was growing brighter, too. Steadily.

  Mira’s eyes widened. “You said three minutes, give or take!”

  “I also said there’s no exact math!” Ben lunged forward and yanked her up, dragging her forward through the store.

  Mira tried to balance, to turn forward so she could—

  Something occurred to her. Something bad.

  “My Lexicon!” she shouted, turning back around, spotting the big, precious tome on the floor where it had fallen.

  “There isn’t time!” Ben kept pushing her forward.

  “Wait! You don’t understand!” She squirmed desperately in his grip, trying to get free, but he was just too strong. “Ben!”

  The rumbling and the brightness continued to grow. Everything around them—the pieces and parts of the old shop, the shelves, the items—flickered like lights, and then one by one began vanishing into thin air … only to be replaced with other pieces and parts that had nothing to do with an antique shop: drill presses, router saws and lathes. The Time Shift was engaging, morphing the local area into a completely different point in time, one that appeared to be when this same building had been a machine shop.

  If they didn’t get out now they would be wiped away with the antiques.

  Mira felt physical pain as she realized the truth. They had to run. She had to leave the Lexicon, and everything inside it, behind. With a scowl, she turned and ran with Ben toward the front door, as the air continued to rumble and flash, the world morphing around her.

  8. COMPASS

  THE DARKNESS RECEDED IN SLOW MOTION as Mira opened her eyes. When she did, she wasn’t where she expected to be. She could hear water rushing by fairly close, and there was a strand of spruce trees towering over her against the wavering aurora that filled the sky.

  Mira wasn’t in an antique shop, and she wasn’t where she’d fallen earlier. She was lying on a sleeping bag on the perimeter of a camp, and she could hear voices around her. Ones she recognized. There were about twenty kids, all dressed in some shade of gray and white, some around camp fires, others checking gear or sleeping under the shade from the trees.

  It was a Gray Devils camp. Which meant …

  “You’re safe,” a voice assured her, and Mira spun around. Ben sat next to her, working in his green-and-blue Lexicon on the ground, a pencil behind his ear. His brass dice cube was absently moving over the knuckles of his left hand, back and forth. “We’re away from the Crossroads.”

  Her shoulder hurt. She remembered where she had been before. With Holt and Zoey. And the Hunters.

  “Where are…?” she started, but couldn’t finish. Her throat was sore and her mouth was dry. Ben handed her a canteen and she drank from it greedily.

  “My guys found you outside Northlift,” he said. “Sent them to look for you, figured you might follow us. They watched until your friends were taken away, then they brought you here.”

  Mira sat up angrily. “Why didn’t they help?”

  “Because then they’d be dead, too. Fighting Assembly is suicide, you know that.”

  “Holt and Zoey aren’t dead,” Mira said pointedly. “The Assembly took them, it’s not the same thing.”

  “Might as well be. Either way, you’ll never see them again.”

  She glared at him—but a part of her knew he was right. If the Assembly had them, then …

  “No,” she said and stood up, fighting through a wave of dizziness. “They’re alive. We can get them back. It’s like you say, there’s always a solution.”

  “There’s always exceptions, too. This isn’t a problem you can solve.”

  “Damn it, Ben—”

  “Think, Mira,” he cut her off softly. “Even if you weren’t talking about going after a pack of Assembly walkers, the Strange Lands are different now. The old routes might not work anymore. Everything might be new. Everything might need to be solved—all over again.” Mira could hear the faint traces of excitement in his voice as he contemplated the possibilities. “Besides, I finally have what I need to get to the Tower. I can’t risk that, it’s too im
portant.”

  “More important than people’s lives?”

  “Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “The Tower represents infinite possibilities. If I can get there I can make everything right. Isn’t that worth two lives? Or four? Or a hundred?”

  Mira closed her eyes. “Ben…”

  “I understand why you’re torn, Mira,” he said. “You’ve always had problems detaching yourself emotionally when you needed to, especially here. But you know I’m right. Going after them makes no sense. It doesn’t add up.”

  What he said rang true in the same cold, logical way that everything he said did. The odds of her finding Holt and Zoey were beyond small. And even if she did, what would she do? Fight the Hunters by herself? But that wasn’t what really bothered her, was it? She was in the Strange Lands, and it meant she would have to navigate it by herself, without Ben. On her own she would fail. Eventually. She wouldn’t be good enough. And whoever was with her would pay a price for that. Just like they had so long ago.

  Instinctively, Mira thought back to the Crossroads. How she froze when the Tesla Cubes were almost on them. How she couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. How could she hope to make it on her own?

  “Your things are over there,” Ben said. “Your Lexicon, your packs.” Mira saw her stuff piled neatly on the other side of the campfire. “I saw your plutonium. Good quality. Couldn’t have been easy to get.”

  The plutonium was the batch from Clinton Station. That had been a month ago, but it seemed like forever. It had been in her pack ever since, a glass cylinder wrapped with a Dampener, an artifact that absorbed the heat that naturally poured off the contained element inside, making it safe to transport. For the most part, anyway.

  “I got it to trade for your life,” Mira said. “But turned out that wasn’t necessary. Didn’t it?”

  It was true. She had hoped to use the plutonium to bargain her way out of Midnight City after she rescued Ben. But Ben had been long gone by the time she’d gotten there. It would have worked, too, the bargain. Plutonium was one of the most valuable substances on the planet because of what it supposedly granted you entrance to. The Severed Tower.

  It was ironic, in a way. Everything she had gone through to get the plutonium—avoiding bounty hunters, scouring different cities for clues, eluding Holt, surviving Clinton Station—had seemed pointless once she’d learned that Ben had been the one who told Lenore about her artifact. And yet it turned out to be critical in a different way. If she hadn’t gotten it, how would they possibly get Zoey to the Tower, where she claimed she needed to go? It all felt like … fate.

  Ben moved closer to her, took her hand. “I know it must have been difficult,” he told her. “But you’re safe now. And you’ll go with me. We’ll go to the Tower together, like we always said. We’ll make the loss of your friends worth it. I promise.”

  Mira looked up at him. Ben had a singular belief, one that had driven him his entire life. It led him to become a Freebooter, it pushed him deeper and deeper into the Strange Lands, it dictated everything he did. The belief wasn’t a simple one. Ben believed that the Severed Tower, the mysterious center of the Strange Lands, was a fusing of all possibilities and realities. If you could reach it and enter it, then you could do anything. Ben’s intention was and always had been to change the world. Literally. To make a new reality, one where the Assembly had never invaded, where none of the horror had ever occurred. And he believed that he was the only one who could do it.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe he wasn’t. Mira wasn’t sure if she believed in his theory or not. It sounded too easy. But it had never been a pressing concern, really. After all, they could never reach the Tower, they didn’t have the resources. No one reached it without an expensive expedition, funded by a Midnight City faction. It was just too difficult. But now it was within Ben’s reach. He could find out the truth for himself. And she could go with him, if she wanted. It was something she always had wanted. But things had changed a lot in the last few months.

  “No.” Mira spoke with a finality that made Ben move away.

  She didn’t have a lot of faith in herself, it was true. And going with Ben would be a much easier decision—but she knew she couldn’t. She had responsibilities to Zoey and to Holt. She had brought them here, which meant in a way they were lost because of her. If they were dead, it would be one thing, but they weren’t. They were alive. And not going after them … was betraying them. Even if going after them was futile.

  “You asked me about my eyes earlier—about the Tone,” Mira said. “Zoey was the one who did that. Zoey can stop the Tone. She can do other things, too. Amazing things. And the Assembly is chasing her. She’s … the key, I think, to whatever it is they’re doing here.”

  As Mira spoke, Ben’s brow wrinkled inquisitively. This was unexpected, and for Ben unexpected things were the most interesting. “So she is the one from the rumors? The one who saved Midnight City, brought the dam back to life?”

  Mira nodded. “They’re hunting her. Different groups from all over. She has to reach the Severed Tower, Ben.”

  “Why?”

  “I … don’t know,” Mira admitted. “The Oracle told her, it said she would learn the truth there. And the Librarian said Zoey was the Apex. He died to save her.”

  For one of the only times since Mira had known him, Ben’s eyes widened in astonishment. “The Librarian is … dead?” She didn’t blame him. It didn’t seem real to her either. The Librarian was more a force of nature than human. She would have bet on him living forever.

  Ben looked away, thinking. “The Apex. That crazy equation he was always working on. The only person to ever come out of the Strange Lands.”

  Ben had never put much stock in the Librarian’s private research, but Mira figured that was because the old man’s equations were one of the few things Ben couldn’t wrap his mind around.

  “That’s … fascinating,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change anything. Apex or not, the Assembly have her now. They went farther into the Strange Lands, Mira, not back. I’ve never heard of the Assembly doing that. But these did.”

  “I have to try,” Mira said.

  “Mira.” There was a subtle hint of desperation in his voice. “If you do this … you do it alone. You know that.” Mira felt a chill run through her. “It’s simple math. You won’t make it.”

  At his words, Mira felt two things: trepidation, because a part of her believed him. She had the proof, didn’t she? But she felt something else, too: anger. What he was saying wasn’t intended to hurt her, she knew. Everything he said was based on facts and data, but they still amounted to one thing.

  “You don’t believe in me.” She stared back at him. “You never have.”

  “I’m just telling you the truth. Because you mean the world to me. And I … can’t lose you.” Mira sighed at the faint edge of emotion in his voice. He did care. He was just blunt. “You don’t have it in you to make the tough decisions that surviving here requires.”

  Mira nodded. “It would be easier if I were more like you. But I’m not. I have to go after them. Because I owe them. Both of them.”

  “I need you,” Ben said, his voice wavering the slightest bit.

  “No,” Mira told him. She touched his face. “You don’t need anyone, not in here.”

  She could see in his eyes that he was torn. Which was unusual for him. He would come if he could, but, in his way of thinking, he simply couldn’t. Ben sighed and nodded to where her packs and Lexicon sat. “I had them loaded with water and food. And I gave you some of our reagents for the waist pack.”

  Mira stared at him curiously. Ben just shrugged.

  “Figured this is what you’d choose,” he said. “It’s what the math pointed to.”

  Ben knew her better than anyone, and even now it was a comfort.

  “This will be the first time we’ve gone into the Strange Lands without each other,” he said. “It feels wrong.” His hands gently pulled the necklaces from her
shirt. Among them there was the old brass dice necklace. He held it in his hand. “You still wear it.”

  “Every day. Even though you don’t believe in luck.”

  “Only with you,” he said, looking back up at her. “Only with you.”

  Ben leaned forward and gently kissed her. She kissed him back. It felt natural. Familiar. It was comforting. It pulled her. But she couldn’t stay here.

  Mira backed away, tears beginning to form. Then she grabbed her things. “Can you … do something for me?”

  “Anything.”

  Mira opened her pack and pulled out the Chance Generator. Instantly she saw Holt on top of the plane, his hand hovering to strike. It wasn’t him, she told herself. But it was hard to remember that, hard not to see that image.

  She hated the artifact, it made her sick just holding it.

  “Is that…?” Ben’s voice was curious.

  Mira nodded. “Holt used it in Midnight City to get us out. We brought it here to destroy it, but … it started affecting him.”

  “The compulsion,” Ben said.

  “He finally gave it up, but I don’t like carrying it. Would you…?”

  Ben held out his hand for the artifact. “The fourth ring Anvil’s on the way to the Core. I’ll destroy it when we get there.”

  At his promise, she felt like a weight had lifted off her. She handed it to Ben and he studied it inquisitively. For a moment, Mira felt a twinge of concern as she watched him with the artifact. But she pushed it away. Ben was too smart—he knew the risks, knew the price that came with it. He would never use it.

  They stared at one another a moment more. Ben’s eyes had more emotion in them than she had ever seen. “Be careful,” he told her. “For me.”

  Mira smiled a little. “Have you seen the scorpion yet?” she asked. It was a personal question, a private one, just between them. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was smiling a little, too.

  “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “Keep looking.” And then she turned and started moving, heading south, following the river. It was amazing, how hard it was. Not just leaving Ben, but also the safety and familiarity he represented. She was moving into unchartered territory in more ways than one.