The Severed Tower
Authors: J. Barton Mitchell
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For Jeff, wherever you are, you are missed.
CONTENTS
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
PROLOGUE
SHE CROUCHED ON TOP
of what was left of the old granary, staring at the strange contradictions of the landscape, everything dark and light at the same time.
The sky was full of thick storm clouds, but it would have been dark without them. This far in, what Freebooters called the Core, midafternoon looked like night, and the only illumination was a sickly shade of yellow that came from the strangely wavering, prismatic sky.
Lightning flashed from the clouds. Bright streaks of red, blue, or green, and whenever it struck, there was a flash of color. Shards of glowing crystals erupted from the ground and froze in place, and the earth was covered with their remnants, a maze of jagged, sharp walls that glowed in various colors.
They filled the remains of what was once a small rural town below, consuming the streets and roads that once ran through its center. The old buildings had fallen in on themselves for the most part, or had been blown to bits by the lightning strikes, but she could see it had been a nice place once. Quaint and quiet.
It was neither of those things now.
More lightning, red this time, illuminated a figure next to her. He was dressed in the same style of black-and-gray. Rugged-looking pants, light boots, tucked-in shirt, a vest with pockets, utility belts crisscrossing his torso. Around both their necks hung woven cloths that could be lifted up to cover nose and mouth. Also on their necks were identical pendants. Two strands of white metallic cord wrapping around each other, with bars in between them, making small spirals—or a double “helix.”
On their left hands, each finger wore a ring made of glowing crystal, exactly like the ones that filled the ground, and strapped to their backs were strange weapons. Long, double-tipped spears, almost as tall as the figures themselves, with a glowing crystal at either end, only these had been polished and shaped into razor-sharp spear points and set into rounded, brass casings that snapped into the shaft. Clearly, it was a double-pronged striking weapon, but looking closer revealed other aspects. The base was rounded into mirrored hand grips on each side, with separate gun triggers, as if the weapon could fire the crystal points from either orientation. It was a strange weapon. Ornate and well crafted, elegant even, but dangerous, too.
The man was Asian, older, probably past sixty years old. His eyes, while clear and free of the Tone, were strange. Something was off about them. They were unfocused and clouded white, and never seemed to look anywhere in particular; but there were volumes of wisdom and experience in their depths.
Next to him, the girl was much younger, sixteen or so. Black, somewhat small, but clearly agile and quick, her unkempt hair tied behind her head without any thought to appearance. Her eyes were clear of the Tone as well, but, unlike the old man, she wasn’t blind, and she wore one thing he didn’t—a pair of pure black goggles on her forehead that could be dropped over her eyes, though it seemed unlikely she could see with them on. Wearing them, she would be just as sightless as the old man.
He stared blindly toward the north. The storm clouds and the darkness obscured the horizon, but, for him, it made no difference. He could
see
neither.
“What are we doing
here?
” she asked. “I thought the point was to attack Polestar.”
“Why are you always so eager for violence?” The old man’s dead gaze didn’t waver. His voice was quiet. As much as she loved him, Gideon had an annoying habit of answering questions with questions.
“I’m not interested in violence,” the girl said tightly. “Just action.”
“Change comes through patience as much as action,” he said. “Stand by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float past.”
“It’s no secret I’m not very good at patience, Master.”
Gideon smiled. “You are more your father than you care to admit.”
The girl felt an angry heat rise within her, but she said nothing. He was right, most likely. Gideon always seemed to be right—but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
More lightning flashed nearby, green this time, and strange thunder rolled around them like waves breaking on a beach. The girl rubbed the hair on her arms, flattening it where it stood up. The Charge felt different today. “Feels like another storm.”
The old man said nothing. He only nodded.
The girl studied the horizon, but all she could see was the current storm, its thick clouds surrounding them on all sides. The lightning flashed red and blue in the air. “Ion or Antimatter?”
“Neither.”
The girl looked at the old man oddly. What other kind of storms were there in the Strange Lands? “Should I pull my Arc back to Sanctum?”
The old man was silent a long time, staring at what lay hidden in the distance. “No,” he finally said. “This storm … we cannot weather. And it’s why I brought you here.”
He looked at her now, or at least as much as he could. Gideon’s stare always seemed to float just a few inches in the wrong direction. “I have two tasks for you, Avril,” he said. “One you will like, and one you will not.”
Far away, the storm swirled and parted like a giant curtain, allowing the horizon to burst into view. In the far distance, what was left of the broken buildings of a city rose into the sky, tiny slivers of brightness in all the black. Beyond them, distorted through a churning haze of fog or dust, was a massive shape that hovered over the ruins.
It looked like a giant keep or tower, yet, somehow, suspended in the air. She could see where it was broken near the middle, the top half tearing away from the bottom, detached and falling, yet
frozen
in the sky. The sight chilled her the same as it always did; pure power and fate combined into one, but, still, she couldn’t look away from it. She was grateful when the clouds massed again and blocked the dark thing from view, wiping it away behind them as they bellowed inward.
In the air above her, the strange lightning flashed again, distorted thunder rolled. It sounded closer now. As though it was building.
PART ONE
THE STRANGE LANDS
1.
RUDE AWAKENING
“MIRA…”
The voice was far away. A girl’s voice, she could tell. A little girl. And it sounded worried.
“Mira…”
She heard other things in her hazy delirium—dull, booming thumps that might have been explosions. Something shattering. And other sounds—strange, distorted and electronic, but familiar enough to stir fear in her.
“
Mira!
”
The cry yanked her painfully out of the dark. Light poured in as her eyes blinked open.
The sky was directly above. It was midafternoon, bright and sunny. Pieces of buildings and other things drifted past—windows, gutters, old billboards she couldn’t read, the top of a rusted school bus. It was as though she were floating underneath them all.
Then she figured it out. She was being
carried.
Through some kind of city ruins.
The world shifted again as someone set her down and rested her against something hard and rough. It felt like a wall, brick maybe.
More sensations came back. Pain in her head, a searing burn on her left leg, just above the knee. Her vision sharpened. Sounds took on clarity—and they were all terrifying.
An explosion flared up and rocked the ground from the other side of the wall. Yellow bolts of light sizzled through the air around her, ripping into other buildings she was just now noticing. A drugstore, a gas station, a post office, all of them crumbling and falling apart where they stood.
As Mira Toombs’s memory returned, she remembered where she was and why.
She’d stashed an emergency kit in these ruins years ago, inside an old school. Supplies for the Strange Lands, if she ever needed to go there on her own or in a hurry, and she’d convinced Holt and Zoey to help her find it before heading to the Crossroads.
The good news was that they’d found the pack. A black canvas bag with a strap that fit around her waist. It was still there, she could see the red
δ
symbol embroidered on its front flap. The bad news was that, right as she’d found it,
they
had shown up.
Assembly walkers. The frontline troops of the alien armada that had conquered the planet almost a decade ago, and who had been obsessively pursuing them for more than a month.
She hadn’t had time to see what kind or how many before the plasma bolts sent her to the floor and everything went dark, but judging by all the heated death flying through the air right now, there were a lot of them.
“Mira!” The voice was masculine this time. One she recognized and depended on. She felt hands on her, one of them turned her head to the left, and when it did Holt Hawkins came into view.
Mira smiled, still groggy. He looked the same as always.
His thick, wavy hair messed up and unkempt, but somehow still intentional in its look. Tall and well built, with brown eyes that never seemed anything but confident, no matter how crazy the world got. Even now, in the middle of this chaos, there was a calculated awareness of everything going on around them that somehow made her feel safe. He was one of the few that ever had.
“Mira! Can you hear me?” More plasma bolts flew by.
Mira made herself focus, quickly brushed the red hair out of her eyes. “How’d you get us out of there?”
“Wasn’t easy,” Holt replied. “You’re a lot heavier than Zoey.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said tartly.
“Mira!” It was the little girl’s voice from before. Mira felt tiny arms wrap around her from the other side, and she looked down.
Zoey’s head was buried under Mira’s arm, the little girl’s eyes peeking out through her blond hair. It always felt wrong seeing Zoey in a place like this, in the middle of something life threatening. A little girl, barely eight years old, didn’t belong here. Yet here she was.