The cliffs formed a natural "U"-shape around Downeytown, the plateau backing them then yielding to the open road to the rest of Heaven One. An hour earlier, Lucille had stepped out of the gate from Earth then climbed onto the weighted lifts next the entranceway. Kernels studded the steel platform, forming the padlock symbol of the Keepers, flashing slightly as she began to rise along the track. She was lighter, and with the hundreds of kernels embedded into the lift, it would be little strain to them, even though they were first order, those from Heaven One, and the weakest of varieties. Once, when she had been on the lift with the captain of the Downeytown guard, when they reached the top the kernels were twinkling and barely sparkling. One or two had popped on the way, causing Lucille to glance over the edge toward the ground far below. The captain had stepped off as if completely unaware of the increased load, adjusting his specially fit armor to cover his paunch, then setting off toward the central tower. For fifteen minutes after his departure, none could use the lift. Even after that, it shuddered for an hour, as the kernels slowly absorbed the energy from Heaven One again. That night, any that had popped would be replaced with fresh ones to prevent a complete failure in the future.
After ascending to the tops of the cliffs, some four hundred feet above Downeytown, Lucille removed the pair of sliders from her pack, a pair of red boots with runes inscribed underneath—severance, inscribed with rock aurel upon a thin layer of rock upon the sole. At her belt were two pouches, kernels filling them, which Heaven One kept full of energy. They were weak, but so too were the runes on her boots. Little energy was required for sliding, so long as the surface was smooth. Fortunately, the top of the cliffs provided that, the rock neither tilting up nor down, and the larger stones easy to avoid. With her mind, Lucille connected the energy from the kernels to the runes in her boots, the friction holding her in place dissipating. The first time she had tried that, her feet had kicked out from under her, landing her solidly on her tailbone as the captain of the guard had laughed.
“Don’t worry about it, Lock. It’s something of a rite of initiation around here. Not one of my soldiers has walked confidently on sliders their first day. They’ll take the dirt on your pants as a sign that you are one of them.”
But Lucille was not one of them, and she had hid the dirt before reaching her first tower. Now, as she skated around the rim, making her way to her third tower of the day, she could keep up with any of the soldiers on the cliffside. After sneaking a pair of the boots back to Earth, and practicing for hours along the less even terrain, it was the soldiers who were pressed to keep up with her.
There were seven towers along the cliff top—three on the left, three on the right, and the captain’s at the center. Lucille accelerated as she travelled to the one farthest to the right, the stone sliding across stone without so much as a whisper. An iron strip covered the outside portion of her boots and dug into the rock with each of her steps. With the rune written in stone aurel, iron would be unaffected by it, meaning that with a slight tilt of her foot she could use the metal contact for steering or acceleration. She kicked off, racing along the clifftop, her hair whipping behind her and the sound of rushing wind filling her ears. Sparks flew beneath her as she took a right turn along the path, keeping at least ten feet between herself and the rock ledge, the path veering away to where the ground had grown too mossy. Though slick for regular shoes, for sliders that moss would act like brakes, as it insulated the layers of stone from each other, interfering with severance. Too much moss and the rune would fail completely, restoring friction immediately. Since the moss grew thickest right at the cliff’s edge, a malfunction there could mean a stumble followed by a long fall.
Reaching the farthest tower, Lucille pressed her lock against the door at its base, hearing the soft click as it popped open. As First Lock, she could open any of the Keepers’ locks in Heaven One with a mere brush of her own, no matter who possessed them. Though on first look, the tower would not have taken much to break into.
Marble white, it rose a hundred meters tall and ten meters wide at the base, imposing from afar, until it was touched. The wall was soft, pliable from its coarse material, a woven fabric that stretched toward the sky, a smooth cylinder with a surface that rippled with each passing breeze. Runes claimed the surface, the first row so large that they dwarfed Lucille, powered by the mound of kernels buried underneath. The door was little more than a flap that ran the entire length up the tower, but it did not open immediately for Lucille; rather, the fabric began to fold in upon itself at the base, crumpling to rustle at her feet. It collapsed like a tent with the poles pulled out from the center, a slow fall that billowed air past her as it was pushed from within the tower, partially diverted through horns that released a low tone from the base. A single frequency, and loud enough to be heard from Downeytown below.
Lucille sipped from her bubble as she waited. Common in the heavens, bubbles were simply water under the influence of a bind rune. Typically, these runes were inscribed in an object with a water aurel. Sometimes that object was as simple as a rock, and other times it was more decorative, like glowing crystal. But regardless of the center, water collected around the rune in a sphere with no containment vessel. Lucille held hers in her right hand, sipping at a tube that traveled out of the center, the orb decreasing slightly in size with each swallow. The water was wet on her hands, but her fingers did not break the tension of the water. If they did, when pulled away, the water would leave her hand dry, fleeing away to join its counterparts in running droplets. Often, cleaners kept bubbles for this purpose- to quickly wet and dry fabrics for washing, removing stains as the water pulled them along.
A minute later, the top of the tower had reached Lucille, the entire structure resembling a tent as the final layers of canvas collapsed like an enormous accordion. Lucille swept the flap aside, revealing three guards at the center, each manning their position at the windows, or rather holes, at the sides pointing ahead, behind, and perpendicular to Downeytown. Fabric formed the floor as well, and when Lucille stepped through into the small enclosure, she raised one hand toward the ceiling and pointed the other toward the ground, where two massive runes were painted. One from earth aurels, at the bottom, refined from the Kelsian Ridges in the far north. And at the top, an air aurel, captured and purified on an enormous tower on the highest mountain top in five hundred miles, each day squeezing out but a tiny sliver. Bind, for the air, and severance, for the earth.
Lucille drew power through her feet, where the mound of kernels rested just below the fabric, and channeled it to both of the runes. The air rune straightened the tower top, keeping the tip pointed upward. Alone, the air rune would simply draw down wind from high above. If the entire tower’s weight rested on that, it would be like standing in a maelstrom, and the force of the air coming downward would destroy the tower fabric over a few days. The earth, therefore, supplied additional force necessary for the lift, but without air, the tower would have no true upward direction. The tiniest of imperfections in the earth rune would make one side stronger than the other, threatening to flip the tent, or to send it skittering away at an angle. Only together could they make the tower stand. Only together could above and below balance.
The runes flashed, and with a lurch they started to rise once more, and Lucille released the kernels as the connection was completed. As Heaven One kernels, they wouldn’t be able to move the tower quickly, but they still would move it with power. She strode to the fourth window, the one overlooking Downeytown, as they rose into the air, pretending not to notice the nervous glances of the guards at her back. They were afraid, she knew. Good. They should be.
“When was the last time that the kernels were checked?” she asked, her eyes over the horizon, her voice sharp. These were soldiers accustomed to the old Lock—soldiers used to a supervisor who only came when prodded. Who hardly spent any time in Heaven One, let alone the seven towers defending the gate.
“Erm, what was that, my lady?” asked one of
the guards after a short silence, his eyes flicking toward his colleagues.
“The kernels, the ones you are standing upon. When were they last checked?”
They continued to rise, and Lucille looked over the expanse of Heaven One. If it weren’t for the subtle differences in perception and fauna, she could likely be convinced that it was a far off destination on Earth. To her left, a mighty waterfall crashed, throwing mist in a small cloud to obscure the face of its own plateau. There would be kernels within its depths—tainted kernels, glowing soft blue instead of the normal white, as they had been infused with water aurel. Better for water applications, but dangerously unpredictable for those such as fire. This close to Downeytown, the sparkling gems would be picked clean, however. There had once been a bed of sparkling blue atop the rock, but the precious few that now remained would be hoarded by crabs before any lightbearers could get to them.
“I... Were we supposed to check them, my lady?”
Lucille remained silent for a full minute as they climbed, suppressing her outburst of anger, a trick she had learned from her mother. Silence after an unassured answer would bring more information out like a curious child inspecting a sound.
“I’d say it has at least been six months. At least, that is.”
Lucille clenched her jaw, but continued to stare outward. A forest was to the right of the waterfall, stretching out so that its edge curved around Downeytown. The trees there were far larger than any on earth, both in height and thickness, and over time, their roots curved away from the paths cut through them. As if they were embarrassed for their intrusion, and withdrew on their own accord.
“I couldn’t say, I only started here six months ago.”
“Are you telling me you don’t know the last time the kernels were checked?” Lucille’s voice cracked like a whip as she spun to face the three, who stared at her with open mouths. “Soldiers, at attention when I speak to you. Do I look like some tourist from the far off reaches of Earth for you to gawk at? Is that what you do all day, gawk at the folk in Downeytown below? Or do you simply nurse the hangover that I can still smell upon your breaths?”
“I, we were–”
“Did I say you could speak? Attention, now, soldier. I can see that you have been drastically misinformed about the nature of your position. And now, you’ll receive a personal lesson from the Lock herself. Do you understand the point of these towers? Why you are here? Now, now you may speak. That is a question you’re actually supposed to answer.”
“To raise the alarm, my lady.” The soldier dared not meet her eyes, and the other two that had remained silent stood stock still. For now she would ignore them, but on her next trip to this tower, they better be damn sure to be model soldiers.
“To raise the alarm, you say? Are you an imbecile? No, that is not a question you need to answer. If you are here to raise an alarm, why have we provided you with weapons? What is an alarm but a coward’s call upon fleeing? You are soldiers, and soldiers fight.
“At the center of Downeytown is a collection of kernels, kept for its defenses. Should those kernels fail, each of these towers bears its own stash, linked to Downeytown. You serve as the keepers of the secondary fires. If these kernels fall unusable, and Downeytown’s defenses are depleted or sabotaged, then those below would be left hopeless. It is critical you keep these kernels burning, do you understand?”
“Of course, of course! We’ll make absolutely sure nothing happens to them.”
“You’ll do more than that. When I return back here, if I find a single kernel has gone out, you would prefer jumping off the top of this tower than being stuck in this room with me. A single kernel, you understand?”
“Of course, my Lock. Of course,” is what the soldier said. Entitled daughter of the head Keeper—not even old enough to be a soldier, yet put in charge of us, is what Lucille knew he was thinking. But she let her eyes roam over the meadows and flowers around Downeytown. There, the flowers were maintained by Downeytown gardeners. For those entering Heaven One, it was one of the special touches that set it apart from Earth, for where on Earth could you find flowers that literally burned, or had petals of glass? From her vantage point, it looked as if they were preparing for an upcoming festival. More red colored buds than any others were starting to push through the masses, as if they were vying for control of the beds. Maybe that flower simply bloomed earlier than the other varieties, she thought, but she frowned as she looked over them. The gardeners had been sloppy. The patches were irregular and not well interspersed. As she stared, even the color seemed off. A tad too bright for Heaven One even, but...
Her thoughts were interrupted by faint shouts from Downeytown below, and she turned her eyes just in time to see a flash of light from one of the side streets. Smoke plumed up from the side of one building as it collapsed in upon itself, and she whipped around to the soldiers, her voice cutting through the air as surely as severance.
“Are there any training sessions today? Any drills?”
“No, not today–” the soldier began, but Lucille’s fingers were already stretched toward the runes, snapping away their connection to the kernels with her mind’s command, cutting off the guard as the tower lurched downward. At the base, there would be another lift. Not one designed for soldiers, but rather for goods and supplies. It wouldn’t bear the weight of a soldier going upward, but it would take the weight of her moving downward. She would know, of course—she’d designed and built it right after becoming Lock.
Too often the central lift would become crowded with supplies for the soldiers, meaning there were idlers waiting at it for the shift change, often leaving their towers deflated and unmanned. The first time that Lucille spotted them waiting, she’d snapped, threatening to throw them from the cliffside itself. But when the soldiers waited up in their towers, any delays in meals bottlenecked their other duties, so Lucille created two additional lifts on either side of the horseshoe.
After studying the initial lift’s design, it had been simple to recreate it, but the first lift relied upon maintenance of its kernels as its loads grew heavier over the years. If too many kernels popped, such a lift would be rendered unusable, but if she added too many kernels to prevent popping, thieves in the night would be attracted to stealing the device. The central lift proudly boasted its kernels, but the central lift was also guarded.
Instead, Lucille designed around that. When the tower fell far enough for her to leap from its window, she darted to the lift fifty feet away and skidded to a stop on the cliffside where it waited for her. She’d commanded it to be crafted from simple iron, pounded into place and unsmoothed, even rusted in areas, to appear little more than a sewer grating. But the iron was not solid; rather, it was hollow, and fifty kernels lit the inside. Medium sized kernels, all chosen for their consistency, each filed down to be indistinguishable from the next, resulting in a small loss of power but forcing them to act as a unit. Here, there was no weak link in the chain—no one kernel was smaller than the others, which would cause it to pop prematurely. If one failed, they all failed, but together they were as consistent as a similar device with a hundred irregular kernels.
More importantly, there would be no heavy loads on this lift. She’d purposefully made the lift small to prevent the servants from stacking too much on it. But what she was most proud of were her calculations before construction. Given fifty kernels, and a maximum weight of half her own, she had worked out what the maximum speed of the lift could be before it drew more power than was replenished to the Kernels by Heaven One. That had determined the strength of her connections to the runes on its surface, so that the lift would never have to be maintained like the central lift, even if it were far more ugly. Heaven One kernels were cheap, however, and few would consider designing something as she had, compared to just swapping them out with fresh ones.
But now, as she jumped on it, the lift wined as she descended, grinding against the siding and shaking as the kernels strained. Her heart fluttered as sh
e looked downward, the ground still far as the kernels trembled, and from the pouch at her belt she drove her own kernels’ power to the runes, reinforcing it despite the oversized load, slowing her descent. Her eyes turned back toward Downeytown. From here she could still see the smoke that now was largely settled and two figures that darted through the streets as they were pursued by Keepers. She was lucky, at this vantage point, to see them at all, for the streets of Downeytown wove like a hundred small rivers, joining and parting at their own will in a maze surrounding the central lane to the gate. Lucille glimpsed them just barely and saw them split, one toward the main street and the other away, just as the Keepers rounded the corner. But not before one handed a bag to the other, then paused just long enough for the Keepers to see him dart away.
Low leveled, all of them, and inexperienced enough that when they caught sight of one fleeing man, they all pursued the same one, as he ducked and wove back toward the main street. Lucille shouted as the second perpetrator slid into a side shop, evading the swarm of six Keepers that stampeded by, their pockets glowing with kernels and faces straight ahead. But the distance between them was too great, and none of the Keepers turned, instead following the decoy before he could escape.
Lucille looked down the slope, still at least eighty feet above the ground, her thoughts turning to the sliders in her bag. If she put them on, she could zip down the slope in just a few seconds instead of waiting for the jolting lift to bumble its way down. She sat, lacing them up as the lift moved, her eyes on the shop until it fell out of sight. Then she stood, wobbling with each jerk, and froze as she looked down the cliffside.
Still fifty feet left, the ground appearing far more distant now that she had her sliders on and was ready to jump. Nausea flooded into her stomach, and she backed into the moving wall, the stone grating against her shoulder blades and forcing her back forward.
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