Towers of Redact

by RG Long

  “Gorplin!” Ealrin called. “Help Trotta and Urt with Alma and Serinde! Silverwolf, Elise, Blume, Teresa, with me!”

  Gorplin came up next to the girl and pulled on her. Reluctantly, she pulled away from Felecia. The dwarf ran off with Trotta as they tried to get a hold of the others before they fell. Blume hoped they made it in time.

  Another great flash of light broke out through the tower, and Blume had to cover her eyes. A great shaking took her, and she nearly toppled over. She heard a large amount of rubble falling beside her and felt the reverberations all throughout her body.

  When she opened her eyes, a portion of the tower had been blown away, and she was unable to see any of her friends.

  Rubble and debris were everywhere.

  And then she heard Ealrin’s voice.

  “Silverwolf! Elise! Get up! This way! Blume? Teresa?”

  “I’m here!” Blume answered.

  Teresa, however, did not reply.

  There was no time to worry. Holve and the man he was fighting materialized just above them.

  The fighting came so close to them that Blume acted out of instinct more than thinking. She threw her hand at the man and, to her great surprise, a bolt of energy left her and struck him square in the chest.

  Apparently, enough for the tower had been destroyed that her magic was now at her disposal again.

  “Ha!” she shouted as she ran to Holve’s side amongst the rubble and stone. He stood with her spear outstretched. He shouted something at her, but she didn’t comprehend it. She felt power again. All of her misgivings and self-doubt were gone. She had her magic now.

  She ignited two orbs of energy in her hands and stared down the man who had been attacking Holve.

  He looked at her with a strange expression on his face.

  Blume smirked.

  She had faced demons and speakers and monsters untold. This middle-age man would be no problem, no matter what Holve had said.

  He reached out a hand towards her, and she prepared herself for whatever blast he sent her way.

  None came.

  Instead, he spoke softly. Or, she perceived it as soft. It was as if the words he spoke were right in her ear, though he was several steps away.

  “You seek to control the stone I was born upon,” he said. “I relinquish you of that power.”

  She raised her eyebrows just as he snapped his fingers.

  Blume was unconscious before she hit the floor.

  53: Judgement

  “Blume!” Ealrin yelled as he ran over to her.

  He barely saw that her chest still rose and fell, but she would not wake with his moving her.

  “Ha!” the man Holve had been fighting said. “Such a puny thing. She will be a delight to study in Galin! The belief that Gilians can try to harness our power is a humorous one, wouldn’t you agree Olenor?”

  Ealrin looked up. What was this man saying?

  “Stay with her,” he said to Silverwolf as he rose up and drew Edgar to his side.

  “Careful,” the sword whispered to him. “This is no man.”

  The man turned his head.

  “You have a spirit in that sword? Intriguing. Perhaps I should study you as well!”

  “Enough, Ibarin!” Holve shouted, holding up his spear. “It’s time you pay for your crimes against the Gilians!”

  The man named Ibarin rushed at Holve and brought his down on him. The clash of weapons sent Ealrin staggering backward. Elise caught him and held him upright.

  “Thanks!” he yelled.

  Looking back, he saw that Holve and the man were exchanging powerful blows.

  Holve shoved him back and struck out with his spear. The man went flying at the weapon made contact with him. He stopped himself from falling off of the tower and looked up hungrily at Holve.

  “You’ve grown weak!” he shouted. “I had hoped you’re time as a homeless wanderer would have made you strong. Not even fighting the demons seems to have given you power against me!”

  Ealrin looked between Holve and the man who was shouting at him.

  “What’s he mean, Holve?” Ealrin asked, keeping his sword up and his eyes on the man.

  “Holve?” Ibarin shouted. “What a quaint name! How has it served you these last hundred years? Better than your others? Or worse than the previous lives you’ve lived!”

  “Enough!” Holve shouted back, flying forward at the man just as he had done towards Holve.

  Ealrin’s eyes went wide. Holve was a flurry of blows and power. He loosed from his hands a mighty wave of white energy that shot towards the man from the distance of a few paces. The blast shook the tower.

  “Ealrin!” Elise shouted. “Did you know Holve could...”

  “No!” Ealrin shouted back. He had no idea the old man had such power in him.

  He had no idea Holve was so old. Did Ibarin say a hundred years?

  The two broke apart, and Holve came to a knee just beside Ealrin and Elise.

  “I wonder if you’ve told them about us!” Ibarin shouted. “About what and who you truly are, Olenor!”

  Ealrin saw Holve grunt as he stood.

  “Hold your tongue, Ibarin!” Holve shouted. “You know why I was exiled! I’ll not repeat past mistakes!”

  “Oh but think of the lives you could save!” Ibarin said as he sent a blast of magic towards them.

  Holve put out his hands and a shield formed around them. Silverwolf and Teresa ran up beside them. Ealrin nodded at them both.

  “You fool!” Holve shouted. “You’ll undo us all!”

  “The demons have already started that!”

  Holve shouted and sent his shield at Ibarin like a battering ram. The man flung it away with his arms.

  “Would they still call you friends if they knew you helped bring the demons to this world? Would they still call you mentor if they knew of the secrets you had hidden from them?”

  “What?” Ealrin shouted.

  Holve stepped in front of him.

  “You don’t understand!” he shouted. “Ibarin deserves to die as an exile. He’s too dangerous to remain alive.”

  Ealrin put a hand on Holve’s shoulder.

  “You can’t kill him until I hear what he has to say!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ealrin! He’s a mage of Galin! He cannot live!”

  “Ha!” the man shouted. “Such brave words from an exile, Olenor!”

  He shot out his hands and knives of energy shot towards them.

  Holve pushed Ealrin back with a blast of his magic, while at the same time, shielded himself from the knives that shot at him. Ealrin felt no pain from Holve’s blast, but he lost his footing and stumbled to his knees.

  “Ealrin!” Elise called out to him, running up to where he had fallen. She got to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, keeping her blade away from him.

  “Get back!” Holve shouted as the man Ealrin had followed for the last week descended on them all.

  “Don’t try to save these Gilians, Olenor,” he said. “They’re no use to you or to us! The plan is nearly complete. We will make restitution for our sins and for the sins of the exiles as well. You will play your part. They have no purpose in it.”

  Ealrin saw Holve hold up his spear and the tip of the weapon glowed white-hot. He shielded his eyes from the glare.

  “These Gilians are none of your concern!” Holve shouted.

  “Then away with them!” the man replied, spreading his arms wide.

  Ealrin stood, Edgar in hand as he put an arm in front of Elise. He would let no harm come to her. The light of Holve’s spear shot forward in the direction of the glowing man. The light divided into two and flew past him, exploding in the sky just beyond them.

  “Such attempts are futile!” came a booming voice from just behind him. He spun to see to the man glowing just behind him and Elise. “All will come to ruin. All will perish. The Gilians. The demons. The Serion. All must pay for the sins committed.”

  �
��No!” Holve shouted from behind them. “Just one!”

  Ealrin turned just in time to see the spear leave Holve’s hand. It flew through the air, in the direction of the man. It was dangerously close.

  The man’s hands clapped in front of him, catching the spear’s tip in his palms.

  It was bloody.

  But it hadn’t pierced the man. And it hadn’t touched Ealrin. So how could it have blood?

  A small gasp next to Ealrin made his blood go cold.

  “Ealrin...”

  He turned to look at the thing he feared.

  And it couldn’t be what he was seeing.

  It was impossible.

  It wasn’t true.

  But Elise weakly grabbed onto his arm, even as she fell to the ground. A hole in her chest.

  A piercing laugh cut through Ealrin’s hearing. It was the glowing man. With a twist of his hands, he snapped Holve’s spear into pieces. The same spear that had pierced Elise.

  Holve’s spear.

  “See how puny the Gilians are, Olenor? See how they die without a thought? As easily as crushing a bug. They’ll all die, Olenor.

  And you’ll play your part in it just as you’ve done here!”

  Another blinding flash of light pierced the sky, and Holve fell to the ground with a grunt of pain.

  “Elise!” Ealrin was shouting. He didn’t know how many times he had called her name. Her eyes were fluttering, and words were trying to escape her mouth. But she was weak.

  “And now...” the man said. “You and this sword will return to the sages to be judged. And I will be reinstated among the Serion as an elder! Come!”

  There was a blinding light. Ealrin watched as the man cast a hand out at Holve, and another at Blume’s unconscious body. In a flash, they were all gone.

  Leaving Ealrin with Teresa and Silverwolf on the top of the tower.

  “Elise! Don’t die! Don’t die, Elise! Stay with me!”

  “Ealrin?” she said in just over a whisper. She reached out a hand.

  He took it and kissed it. The taste of blood filled his mouth.

  “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked into the eyes of his sister. They blinked again, much slower this time.

  “You really were...” she began to say. “My best...”

  The last word never reached her lips. They remained parted as her eyes looked past Ealrin. Unseeing. Ealrin shook her lifeless body, willing her to move, to smile, to blink. To finish her last sentence.

  “Elise! ELISE!”

  She didn’t answer. She wouldn’t answer him. Ever again.

  Elise was dead. And Holve was the one who had killed her.

  “Holve!”

  Ealrin was on his feet, looking around the mountain. Had the man taken Holve away? To Galin? The far continent no man has ever returned from? If that where he had taken Holve? The man who had killed his sister.

  “I trusted you! HOLVE! I trusted you! And you killed her!”

  Ealrin was shouting himself hoarse. The man who he had followed from Ruyn, who he had trusted with his life, who he had fought alongside and given his life to. The man who had killed Elise.

  “I’ll find you, Holve! I’ll find you!” Ealrin yelled to the stars.

  His shouts echoed over the mountain, sure to alert any who was within the sound of his calling. His anguish yells and shouts of pain did nothing to fill the empty blackness that was filling up his heart. He felt, more powerfully than he had ever felt in his entire life, that there was only one solution.

  Save Blume.

  Find Holve.

  “I swear on any god who lives, Holve,” he screamed. “I swear I’ll kill you, Holve!”

  The black void of the heavens gave him no reply.

  54: Guilt

  Gorplin was running as quickly as he could. They had heard the explosions above I knew that the fight must have still been going on. With the tower caving in around them, he didn’t know how much longer they had before it all came down. He and Trotta had managed to get Serinde and Alma down from the ceiling before the tower had exploded again, but then they had gotten separated from everyone again.

  No less, they had been buried up to their waists in the rubble. Once they had freed themselves, they had done their best to return to the fight that they could no longer see. But now, they were just trying to find a place in the tower that was not falling over.

  “This whole place is bloody well going to collapse in on itself!” he bellowed. “Where the devil are the rest of them!”

  They ran past the window and saw something circling around the tower.

  Alma flashed her blades at it. The airship flew around next to the window. Jaxon was at the helm, and his wife Jill was at the railing.

  “Jump! The tower's already leaning out here!”

  Gorplin cursed. He looked down and saw there was a wide expanse between the airship and the tower and knew it was there only hope to jump it. He just hated that he was going to have to jump first.

  “Ladies first!” he said. Gorplin moved from the window to let Felicia, Alma, and Teresa jump onto the ship.

  The three of them cleared the gap easily.

  Gorplin cursed again as he felt the tower shake.

  “A dwarf had no business being this high off the ground,” he grumbled before he gave himself as much of a running start as he could and leaped from the window to the railing of the airship.

  He just barely grabbed onto the other railing as Jill and Alma helped pull him up. His feet scrambled against the side as they rolled him over the railing and all collapsed in a pile.

  “Hold on!” Jaxon called. He moved the airship away from the tower as a chunk of it fell where they have been just moments before.

  “Where are the devil is Ealrin already?” as the rubble crashed down into the city below. It was Serinde who pointed upward.

  “There!” she shouted. “I can hear someone yelling!”

  Gorplin felt his stomach fall as Jaxon lifted the airship towards the top of the tower. A large section of it had been blown away as they had thought and was beginning to crumble.

  Silverwolf was waving her arms at them as Teresa was helping Ealrin lift something from the ground.

  Jaxon again moved the airship close, and with great effort, Teresa and Ealrin lifted Elise onto the airship just as Silverwolf hopped on herself.

  “Where is Holve!?” Gorplin shouted.

  “Just get away from the tower!” Silverwolf yelled at Jaxon. “The whole thing is going to blow!”

  “What about Blume?” Alma yelled, running over to the railing. “Where is she?”

  “Go!” Silverwolf yelled again.

  There was a much louder rumbling in the tower as Jaxon began to shift the airship away from it. Gorplin grabbed onto the railing and looked back at it as they sped away from the tower. Several orbs of white light began to radiate from the structure and grow larger, obliterating everything in its path.

  “No!” he shouted. “Holve!”

  He turned to look at it Ealrin. He was still cradling Elise in his arms. That’s when Gorplin noticed the blood on her chest.

  “Ealrin! What happened? Where is Holve?”

  With that last question, Ealrin shouted back at Gorplin.

  “She’s gone! He did it! She’s dead, and he did it! And he took them! I don’t know where. I couldn’t stop him. But he killed her. He killed her.”

  With that shout came a burst of tears. Gorplin was having a hard time understanding. Why hadn’t Elise moved? Who was dead? Ealrin was sobbing uncontrollably into the body of his sister. Gorplin saw that she made no movements. Slowly, the dwarf understood. It was Elise. She was dead.

  He looked up to Silverwolf for answers.

  She sighed deeply and began to climb up the mast of the Sky Dart. She did not look back.

  “What happened Teresa?” Alma asked weakly. “Where is Blume? And Holve? Are they in the tower? Are they dead?”

  Teresa sho
ok her head.

  “The man we saw,” she said quietly. “He and Holve fought. It was terrible. Blume was no match for him. She was knocked unconscious. Holve was equal to him. But the man threw a spear. Holve deflected it with a burst of magic. So instead of hitting Holve, it went right through Elise.”

  Ealrin was still sobbing.

  “Holve killed...” Gorplin began. He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “After it happened, there was just a moment where the man overpowered Holve. He took him and Blume and disappeared. That’s when the tower began to shake. He said something about calling down judgment on all of us.”

  Everyone stood still as Jaxon continued to steer the airship away.

  Teresa bent down to Ealrin.

  “It was an accident,” she said quietly.

  Ealrin was in hysterics.

  “Nothing with Holve is an accident!” he shouted back. “Everything is strategic! Everything is planned! Nothing he has ever done has been without thought. His spear killed Elise. Holve’s spear! He did it!”

  “No,” Gorplin said. “He wouldn’t. Holve wouldn’t do that. Accident or no.”

  “He did,” Silverwolf said from up above.

  The dwarf looked at Teresa, who did not meet his gaze. He turned over to look at Ealrin.

  “And then he took them? He took Holve and Blume?”

  Ealrin nodded his head. Gorplin knew that was all he was going to get from the man. Drawing out his ax, Gorplin drove it deep into the deck of the ship and marched over to the railing.

  How could this be?

  The side of the mountains usually calmed Gorplin down when he was anxious or upset.

  Now he looked at them as they sped away and found that the mountains only added to his anger and confusion.

  55: Rark

  They had spent weeks walking from the ashes of the battlefield in Severn to the northern part of Redact. Where ever there have been farmland or sustainable resources, Rark had stopped and designated some of her people to farm and grow the community there. In this way, she hoped to grow strong on their island. She had heard tales of the strength of their people. She would watch them go strong again.

  Their victory had, at first, felt hollow.