The Severed Tower

by J. Barton Mitchell

  The mirror again, the image of her in it. She looked confident and strong, capable, resourceful. She looked like the person she wanted to be.

  And with that realization, the pain ended. The world rushed back and Mira fell to her knees.

  A slight tingling in her hand made her look down, and she saw the paper burning into cinders, drifting away in the breeze. The dragon was gone, the experience was over. Mira swallowed. Her clothes were damp from sweat. A chill ran through her at the memory of the pain, but had she really learned anything from it?

  “What did you see?” Gideon’s voice brought her the rest of the way back. He had kneeled down before her, his empty gaze glancing just to the left.

  “A … reflection,” Mira said, her voice raspy.

  “A reflection of what?”

  “Myself.”

  “And what did your reflection look like?”

  Mira shook her head. “Strong. Confident. But I don’t feel that way!”

  “I never said you would feel any differently,” Gideon replied, and offered his hand to her. Mira took it and stood up. “I only gave you an idea. You must now make sense of it.”

  “How?” Mira asked in frustration. “It was just me in a mirror. That’s it.”

  Gideon studied her patiently. “Perhaps you are focusing on the wrong thing. Perhaps the reflection is irrelevant. Perhaps what you should truly be considering, is the mirror.”

  “The mirror?” He was making less and less sense.

  “We all have mirrors,” he answered. “Things that reflect ourselves so that we can see. Some show what we really are. But some produce only distorted images. Yet, sadly—we accept them. Blindly.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Gideon nodded. “I believe you will. When the time is right.”

  Mira shook her head and looked away. At least he was optimistic. Then something occurred to her.

  “The notebook,” she said. “Is it how you teach the Helix?” It made sense, actually. If the White Helix learned what they knew from Gideon, the only way they could become so skilled so quickly would be the use of something like the notebook. If it could really do what Gideon claimed, then the Helix, Avril, Dane, all of them, would be able to learn directly from Gideon’s knowledge, absorbing it like memories.

  “Yes,” Gideon answered, “but it is no easy road. You felt the pain yourself, and that was for one simple idea, now growing in your subconscious. Imagine the pain involved for the mastery of a skill. Then consider all the skills my pupils possess.”

  Mira shuddered. If she’d had to learn how to be a Freebooter that way, she wasn’t sure she could have done it. She suddenly had a new respect for the White Helix.

  “Many do not survive the learning,” Gideon continued in a low voice, “but the Strange Lands is like a forge. It hones and shapes us, makes us strong. In that way, we use it against itself.”

  Mira shook her head. Gideon was an enigma, but a fascinating one. “Gideon doesn’t sound like a very Asian name.”

  “No.” He chuckled lightly. “I was once called something different, but that is a story for another day. A long one. I have done many things in my life I would prefer not to think on.” The mirth in his voice slowly dissipated. “I have always thought it odd. It was not until the Assembly came that I lost my sight; and it was not until I found this place that I truly learned to see. I would not be who I am now, in that other world—but none of us would, I suppose.”

  “I guess not.” Something else occurred to her. Something she had been curious about. “The Reflection Box. It’s a powerful artifact, I get it, but—why is it so important to you?”

  “It is important, not for this moment, but for others,” Gideon answered. “If what I fear does come to pass, then it will be an integral part of what follows. It is my hope that you will not need it, but, if you do, you will know why when the time comes.” Gideon and Mira considered each other a moment more, and then Gideon began to walk back toward where they had started. “Come. You are as prepared as you can be.”

  Mira followed after him. “Prepared for what?”

  “For all that is left.”

  They walked the rest of the way of in silence.

  38. SHIFT

  ZOEY WALKED IN BETWEEN MIRA AND HOLT, holding their hands. Max was in front and Ambassador stomped behind them, its green laser light taking away as much pain as it could. Together, they slowly moved into the canyon, and as they did, Zoey saw that Sanctum had been completely disbanded. The infinite stretch of glowing tents was gone, leaving only darkness—but it was by no means abandoned. When they reached where the meeting had taken place earlier, the multitudes of the White Helix were there, filling the canyon walls in flickering spots of color, awaiting her arrival. The old phone booth was closed, the strange, swirling storm of gray light once again trapped inside, and everything was eerily silent.

  “Kiddo,” Holt said, glancing down at her. “You don’t have to do any of this, you know. Not if you don’t want to.”

  She could sense his sincerity, his concern, and she smiled through the pain. “I know.”

  The strange group, human, canine, and machine, moved into the center of the canyon, and as they did cheers erupted, drowning out everything. Colored sparks shot from the walls and the ground, flashing in the air like lightning.

  “Strength! Strength! Strength!” the Helix chanted as Zoey moved, and she pushed against Holt instinctively.

  In the middle, another group waited. Zoey could see White Helix and Menagerie, two dozen of each, glaring with distrust at one another. Avril, Dane, Masyn, and Castor were among them, while Ravan stood with her men impatiently. Out in front, by himself, was Gideon.

  When they reached the center, Zoey and the others stopped, waiting, unsure, listening to the chants. Then Gideon held his hands up—and everything went silent again. He turned slowly where he stood, as if looking at the thousands of students that filled the canyons, waiting eagerly for his words. But, of course, he wasn’t “looking” at anything.

  “The Pattern has honed us. Made us sharp. Forced us to grow strong.” His voice echoed against the dark, painted walls. “I have asked much of you, I know, and you have never questioned it, but in your hearts you wonder what the intent of all this is. You wonder why we have made ourselves the way we have. You wonder about your purpose, about who you really are. I promise you that soon, all too soon … you will have your answers. For the dawn we have waited for is approaching, and it will wipe away everything.”

  Max whined underneath Zoey. She reached out and scratched his head.

  “What is the first Keystone?” Gideon asked.

  The Helix instantly responded, filling the canyon with their voice. “We are what we think we are!”

  “We are what we think we are,” Gideon responded, and it seemed, just for a moment, that his blind eyes looked toward Mira. Zoey felt a sudden sense of trepidation from her. Those words had some meaning to Mira, though Zoey was unsure what. “When the day comes that I am no longer with you, whenever you question yourself or what you must do, remember the first Keystone. Remembering it … is remembering me. You are all my children. You are all my equals—and you each give me great pride.”

  From the thousands of White Helix that surrounded them, Zoey sensed a flood of overwhelming emotion. Excitement, anticipation—and love. They loved Gideon. He had made them something special. He had taught and nurtured them. He had been a father, something that the vast majority in the world now never experienced or knew.

  “Form the caravan,” he continued. “Make all speed to the Tower. When you reach it—you will know then who you are.” His sightless gaze passed over the multitude one last time, then he spoke his final command. “Go.”

  Immediately, the White Helix began to move, leaping from the walls, either to the ground, or to the top of the canyon—droves of them, a massive wave of sparkling color and gray shadows that blended into the darkened landscape. Half a dozen tipped over the phone boot
h and grabbed the lengths of metallic poles on either side, carrying it between them, blending into the crowd. Zoey watched as they became strobic silhouettes against the flashing Antimatter Lightning in the distance, heading north toward where she and the others, hopefully, would be very soon.

  The remaining White Helix and the Menagerie moved close. Holt and Mira, Ravan, Avril, Dane, they all stared at Zoey expectantly.

  “I still think it’s too many people,” Mira said. “It should be cut in half.”

  “We can reduce the strain on the Prime, if it proves necessary,” Gideon said, as he slowly knelt in front of Zoey, “but I don’t believe it will.”

  Zoey studied Gideon as he lowered himself, his foggy eyes never looking completely at her. “You are scared,” he observed without judgment.

  Zoey nodded. She was. She didn’t know if she could do what he wanted, and she desperately didn’t want to fail Mira or Holt.

  “Can you sense my emotions,” Gideon asked, “in the way you do others?”

  Zoey shook her head no. It was true. Even now, with him this close, he was unreadable to her.

  “Try again,” he instructed.

  Zoey reached out toward him—and this time, Gideon’s feelings were open. Whatever walls or self-control he normally maintained were gone, and she could sense everything he felt, a wide array of complicated emotion that stretched out before her, and amid all that mix of sensation was a confidence so radiantly bright that it overpowered everything else.

  A confidence in her. That she had the ability and the will to do exactly what he thought she could. Gideon’s confidence in her gave her strength, pushed the pain in her head even more into the background than Ambassador’s laser light could, and she smiled as she felt it.

  “You are everything I hoped you would be, Zoey.” Gideon smiled at her. “Are you ready?”

  Zoey nodded and moved closer to Ambassador. His flickering eye stared down at her.

  Holt and Mira each took one of her hands. Holt’s was shaking. Mira’s eyes were glistening. Zoey didn’t need her powers to know what each of them felt.

  “We love you very much,” Mira told her.

  “I know,” Zoey replied.

  “Oh, God, please, if we’re doing this thing, let’s get it over with,” Ravan said impatiently. Mira glared at her, but the pirate didn’t seem to care.

  “What do you need us to do, kiddo?” Holt asked. His voice was tense.

  “Just … close your eyes, I guess,” Zoey said. “When you touch Ambassador, you’ll see his colors. Gideon will imagine where we need to go, and then, you know—hold on.”

  “Right,” Holt said with very little enthusiasm.

  Zoey breathed in slow and deep—and then closed her eyes. She reached out and instantly found Ambassador, his colors bursting to life in her mind. That was the easy part. Now came the hard one. She reached out again, but this time toward the minds of the people around her. One by one, their thoughts and memories merged with her own. Holt, Mira, Ravan, even Gideon, and with each new presence she touched, the pain in her head flared hotter.

  She kept building the connection, trying to merge all of them, one after the other, but she—

  Zoey broke the link and fell to her knees. It was just too much.

  Ambassador rumbled above her. Max whined and she felt Holt’s hands wrap around her.

  “This is insane!” Mira cried. “She shouldn’t be doing this!”

  “Zoey,” said Gideon softly. “It hurt?”

  Zoey nodded. The pain subsided enough that she could open her eyes and look at him.

  “Pain is seldom the end of a path,” he told her. “More likely, it is just an obstacle to the other side.”

  “What’s on the other side?” Zoey asked weakly.

  “All the answers you have ever sought. Is it not worth a little more pain … so that you might be free of it forever?”

  “Don’t manipulate her like that!” Mira’s voice had an edge to it that Zoey didn’t like. She could feel Holt start to lift her up and away.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let me try one more time.”

  “Zoey—” Mira started, desperate.

  “I want to try one more time,” she reiterated, and Holt and Mira went silent. Even Ravan stared at her with a look that bordered on respect. Before anyone else could argue, Zoey closed her eyes again and reached out for Ambassador. When she touched him this time she tried something else. She called on the Feelings, bringing them to the surface, and they heeded her call, rising up and filling her.

  Once more she reached out toward the people around her, touching each, one at a time, their memories and thoughts flowing through her. As she did, the Feelings expanded, showed her other ways, ways that could more efficiently connect her mind to the others, and Zoey followed their suggestion.

  The pain grew in her head as she connected each mind, flaring up, growing stronger and stronger; but Zoey held on to the Feelings, let them aid her and give her strength. One mind after another she added to the string, and each one brought new flashes of pain and dizziness—but she kept going, fighting through it, each presence she touched was one more closer to her goal.

  Then it was done. Zoey touched each of them, more than fifty minds in all, and there was a moment, a brief moment, where she marveled at what she had done. But then the pain threatened to overtake everything, and she shoved forward toward the wavering, bands of color that were Ambassador.

  The world flashed and upended. She felt a wave of nausea and pain, but she held on.

  There was a sound. Like a powerful, punctuated blast of distorted noise, and a quick wave of heat. Zoey gasped, her stomach clenched, her ears rang—and then the pain in her head exploded. She cried out, but she wasn’t sure anyone could hear.

  Everything went black. She thought she felt a blast of cold wind, thought she heard screams and explosions.

  Then, from the distance, a projection entered her mind. Thoughts, pure emotion. Ones she recognized. They were not Ambassador. They were from another source. A terrifying, dark one.

  Scion! We are here!

  The last thing she remembered before she gave in to the pain and the darkness, was that the Royal had found her, just as it had promised.

  * * *

  MIRA SAW AN IMAGE of Zoey, like before on the train bridge, but this time the girl wasn’t smiling. She was grimacing in pain. Then there was a burst of sound, a wave of heat … and everything around her was suddenly windswept chaos.

  A cracked and fragmented road ripped forward. Frightening, twisted shadows stretched into a pitch-black sky of swirling clouds that glowed with eerie yellow light. It was a city, or at least its ruins, and Mira had a good idea what it was.

  Bismarck, the center of the Strange Lands. It meant Ambassador and Zoey had done what they intended. They had teleported them deep into the Core, deeper than most Freebooters ever dreamed of going, and one look around showed her why.

  Her hair blew wildly from the intense winds that roared around them, so strong, it was hard to keep her balance. Antimatter Lightning flashed almost constantly in the sky. There were other things, huge things, moving in the distance. Giant funnels of swirling black that roared powerfully through the landscape.

  Dark Matter Tornadoes, one of the most powerful Anomalies in all the Strange Lands, and here Mira was watching half a dozen of them.

  As they moved, Dark Matter Tornadoes displaced physical space. Whatever they touched remained solid, but its atomic structure was stretched and bent, and the effects of their continued passage through the ruins was plainly visible. The broken streets were filled with a mishmash of cars and vehicles that were still solid, but twisted into impossible shapes, like some kind of abstract painting. The buildings, if they still stood, were just as haphazard, stretched and blended into one another. It was painful to look at.

  Mira watched one of them move, rumbling in the distant east, and following it brought her eye to something that made a chill sweep over her. The oth
ers, two dozen Menagerie, two dozen White Helix, were all staring at the same thing.

  To the north, less than a mile away, a giant mass of tiny, flashing particles swirled like some huge alien sandstorm stretching out of sight. It was called the Vortex, and behind it, just visible through the veil, rose a massive black elongated shape that stretched into the sky. It didn’t touch the ground, just hovered over everything. Even more amazingly, it was broken in half about two-thirds up its length, the top piece having separated and tilted outward as though it was falling … but it never did. It just hung there suspended in place, unmoving behind the Vortex.

  It was the Severed Tower.

  The center of the Strange Lands. The very thing she had been laboring so hard to reach, and it was right there, maybe three miles away. A giant shaft of darkness that seemed to stare down at her with menace. She had wondered whether or not it was even real, so few people had seen it. If she was honest, a part of her had hoped it wasn’t—but it was. And it hovered there like some impossible monolith, waiting for her, stretching thousands of feet into the air.

  She felt a surge of dread. How did Gideon or anyone else think she could get them to that? How did—

  “Zoey!” It was Holt’s voice, and Mira instantly hated herself. Her attention had been on the Tower and not on the little girl who had sacrificed everything to bring them here.

  Holt ran toward Ambassador, the only one of the group immune to the fierce winds. Underneath the walker lay Zoey. She wasn’t moving, she didn’t even look like she was alive.

  “Oh, God…” Mira slid onto the rough pavement. Holt pushed a whining Max out of the way and knelt down, too. Ambassador rumbled above them, bathing her in the green light, but it no longer seemed to have an effect.

  “She’s breathing,” Holt said, and Mira sighed in relief. At least there was a—

  The healing laser shut off. Mira stared up at Ambassador. “What are you doing?” she yelled at the machine. “Help her!”

  The walker’s eye shifted to Mira for a moment—and then it took two loud, powerful steps backward.