by Gabi Moore
Dion reached the top of the steps after a few minutes. The steps were placed higher the further you climbed up the stairs, which made it difficult to mount the last few ones. It was this way for a purpose, he decided. The best he could figure out was the builder of the stairs wanted to make the person who ascended them think about where they were headed. By the time he reached the final step, Dion was exhausted and leaned on the wall before trying the handle.
He found it unlocked and the door, made of a lightwood, swung without much effort.
Dion walked into the room and blinked at the light, which nearly blinded him. It wasn’t that the light was intense, the room was painted white and the light reflected off the surfaces and into his face. Dion let his eyes adjust from the dark staircase for a few minutes to the difference in the room. He closed the door behind him and looked around.
The room was empty. Empty as in there was nothing inside. He walked the expanse of the room, which had to be twelve by twelve feet, and looked at the floor and ceiling. All were a bright shade of white. It was as if someone had entered the room with an airless spray unit, popped open some five-gallon pails of latex paint, and proceeded to coat the entire room from top to bottom. Even the chairs, which sat in the corner, were painted with the same bright white color. So was the rest of the room. He looked at the wall and noted the coating was continuous, which meant the room was painted at the same time. Dion tried to scratch a bit of the paint away and discovered it to be on an ordinary wall. Off course, the wall was white, but made out of stone. The room lacked windows, which didn’t surprise him, as they were deep inside the tower.
He turned around and looked at the door he’s used to get inside it. Once again, the door was gone. Was this a truth for all the doors in the tower? Dion looked around and noted there were no doors on any of the other walls. He appeared to be trapped inside a room and this time there was nothing to hide a secret passage, or so it seemed.
There was a hum and the outline of a door appeared on the wall in front of him. He stood and watched as the outline merged into the image of a wooden door with a peephole in the center, up near the top. The sound stopped as the door took material form. Dion stepped back and the door’s lock clicked as it opened and swung out to meet him.
From out of the door stepped a man in his forties dressed in white. He was slender with blonde hair and a contagious smile. He shut the door behind him as he entered the room, but the lock did not click a second time.
“Good day,” the man said to Dion as he extended a hand. “I am Adam Belial. You are Dion?”
“I am. I’ve just came from the other office, the one down at the end of the stair case. Do all the doors here form and disappear when you are done with them?”
“Not all,” the man told him, “but many do. I would say most fit the profile you just described to me. It’s a safety feature in the building. You don’t want the wrong people penetrating the financial sector as they could easily run out with economic reports. Imagine how that would damage the company. This way they can’t get any further unless someone allows them to do so.”
Dion looked the blank room over. “Interesting decoration. I expect you paid a lot of money to have it done.”
“Not me. The man who owns the corporation did it out of his own pocket, if I recall correctly.”
“So what kind of work do you accomplish here, Adam?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I was hired to run this office three months ago. They still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Does this office have a name?”
“It’s a separate company inside the mall management. We’re known as Edom Consulting. At least that is what I know from the name on the stationary. I don’t see much of the building. As far as I can tell, my office is cut-off from the rest of the world. Would you like to see the rest of it? This is only the antechamber.”
“I’d love to. Please tell me it was more furnishings than this room.”
“Of course. This room is where I meet new clients. Can’t impress them unless you keep them guessing, as I once heard someone say.”
He turned to the other door and made a few passes over the door. There was another sound of a lock unclicking and the door swung open again. Adam held the door open for Dion.
“After you,” he invited Dion.
The next room was a vast library. Dion walked inside it and admired the extensive collection of materials it contained. He went to the nearest shelf and pulled out one of the books. It was in a language he couldn’t understand, so he placed it back on the shelf. As Adam watched, Dion pulled several other books from the shelves and looked at them too. Each one was in a different language. He looked at a few more. Also in different languages. A few used alphabets he did recognize and some even had characters in the standard Roman style of writing. But none of them had words that he understood. Nor were any two the same.
After a few more minutes of his book hunt, Dion found one that was in English. It was one he could read. Naturally, it was a book of limericks and he couldn’t make sense out of the subject. Dion sighed and returned the book to the shelf.
He turned to Adam, who still waited in silence. “Is this your job? Taking care of all these books?”
“It’s one of my jobs.”
“And the other?”
“Processing people who come through here.”
“I thought that was the job of the twins in the last room.”
“Oh, no. They don’t really do anything other than screen out travelers who found a way past that door. A few minutes with them and most people are begging to be sent back to where they came.”
“So what is the next destination on my trip?” Dion asked him. He didn’t see any windows in this room either.
“Through that door over there,” Adam pointed to the one at the other end of the room. Dion failed to notice it when he came into the library.
They walked across the library to the door on the opposite end. Once again, Adam opened it and beckoned Dion to walk to the other side. Once again, Dion followed his request and went through the door. Like the last one, it was too dark to see what was on the other side of the door before he walked through it.
Dion walked into a thunderstorm.
It was night and the lighting lit up the sky the moment he was through the door. He found himself outside and protected by the rain from a cupola, which extended a few yards over the door.
In the distance, the lightening illuminated a lone tower that stood across the rain-drenched landscape. The tower appeared to be several hundred yards away and the only thing he could see in the distance, due to the storm, was a river on the other side of it.
“I thought I was in a tower,” Dion said to Adam who stood next to him with his hand on the door. It was still open. “Where am I?”
“That was someone’s time circle,” Adam told him. “This is another one. The tower exists in many places and circles. You’ll need to reach the one over there if you want to achieve your goal. I’m not permitted to tell you anymore than this.”
“But what about the clock tower that overlooks the mall?”
Adam frowned. “I really have no idea what you are talking about,” He said and shut the door on Dion. Dion heard the lock click on the other side. There was a flash and he found himself starring at a gray rock wall.
Chapter 4
Dion was soaked by the time he’d walked thirty yards. The tower was the only shelter he could see in the darkness besides the covering he’d just left. Mud covered his high-top shoes by the time he was at the halfway point to the tower. The rain was cold and beat on him from all sides as the wind shifted. Clouds covered the stars and sky, which further increased the blackness into which he walked. The only way he could see the ground was when the lighting arced across the sly and lit everything up. The ground was hard and full of rocks.
He was in some kind of valley. The tower overloo
ked the river from a high vantage point, but he could see no signs of habitation anywhere else. Dion had no idea where he was. The only thing, which offered safety, was the tower and he didn’t know what lay inside it. Light flicked from the occasional window in the tower, so someone had to be there.
The tower was forty-four stories high. Dion managed to count them as he trudged his way in its direction. The different levels had windows, but he could see no one at them. All the windows were protected by translucent glass, which made sense in this weather. Occasionally when the lighting illuminated the sky, he could see crosses cut into the stone. He puzzled over their meaning. Then it hit him: the crosses were arrow slits for archers and snipers. The same for the crenellation on the top of the tower, it allowed a defender protection from any ground fire. This tower, which appeared to be made of stone, was very old. It was also positioned here for military reasons and not a tourist attraction.
He stopped at the ramp that led to the huge twin doors on the first level of the tower. The wind continued to pound him with rain. Never once had the storm lifted in his walk across the field, which separated the tower from the rock walls where Adam dumped him. Dion could still see the lights burning in the windows, but no one waited for him at the door. The tower, which had to protect this valley from something or someone, lacked any kind of heraldry or banners. It had no fortifications or walls around it. It did have a moat around it. The sheer size alone was enough to give any potential attacked a second thought about an assault. There was a bridge across the moat, but very little water flowed through it. Dion wondered if the tower was still in active use, or just some kind of relic. Given the remote location, whoever built might’ve repurposed the tower once it was of no more strategic value.
Dion tested the bridge and found it would support his weight. He looked down and didn’t notice any spikes at the bottom, just a shallow stream of dirty water that flowed a few feet deep at the bottom. It was still a thirty-foot drop. He trod across the bridge with care and stayed in the middle. It moaned under his weight and he doubted the bridge could hold much more than what he weighed.
Once across the bridge, he mounted the ramp and walked up to the doors. The second before he raised his hand to pound on the door, a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, which almost blinded him. He counted two seconds between its appearance and the sound of thunder. The noise was loud enough to deafen him. Based on the last time he timed the lighting, the storm wasn’t going anywhere. He’d left his smart phone back at the house this morning. He doubted there would be a signal in this place for a weather report.
Shivering from the wet cold, Dion pounded on the doors. No one came to answer him, so he tried the handle. Locked, just as he suspected. Whoever was inside that tower didn’t want to deal with whatever lurked in this night land. Dion waited a bit longer and pounded again. He prayed the lighting would not pick this moment to try some target practice.
This time a peephole opened up inside one of the big doors. The peephole was about five feet from the ground and no more than six by six inches. It was built for concealment and he didn’t notice the tiny door until it opened. A pair of eyes starred at him until it shut.
There were multiple sounds from the other side of the massive doors as someone unlocked them from inside the tower. Dion stepped back as he couldn’t tell which direction the doors would swing. The lighting gave him a better look at the doors, which were covered in metal and studded with spikes. Whoever built the tower knew the entrance would be a weak point if it were under attack.
The doors swung out very slow. Dion could hear a clacking as they opened. It occurred to him that the doors were too heavy to be pushed and had some kind of mechanical system to open them. He’d noticed a small stone building attached to the tower near the base and wondered if it had something to do with the door’s operation. He doubted it as the outbuilding would make the door vulnerable to an opposing force. Whoever built the tower wanted everything protected on the inside of it.
The doors took a full minute to crank open. Dion guessed this was for protection as well. You didn’t want huge doors that could be swung open quick during combat. If the doors locked in place when they opened, this gave extra protection to an adversary who tried to storm them from the ramp. Although, given the lack of any structures in the visible distance, where could anyone hide who attacked this tower?
There wasn’t much light on the inside but Dion could see a figure who held a lantern. The doors stopped their motion at the apex. Since he had nowhere else to go, Dion stepped inside and let the cold water drain from his clothes. His hair was matted down from the wind and rain. He shivered from the walk through the storm.
“Please step inside a little further so I can close the doors,” a voice said to him. Dion complied and tried to wipe the water from his face.
He thought the voice sounded feminine, but the thunder muffled his hearing. Dion couldn’t be sure how anything sounded until his sense of sound returned to normal
Dion heard the doors began to move back in place when he was clear of them. Once the doors closed, he heard the sound of locks as they snapped into place. This had to be done by something automatic since the dim figure in front of him hadn’t moved since he’d entered.
Once he managed to wipe the rain from his face and his vision adjusted to the dark room, Dion was able to see the person in front of him.
The person who’d opened the door was a woman. She was dressed in black.
Not only was her outfit, a dress which cascaded to the floor, black, but so was the woman who faced him. Dion himself was dark in complexion, but this woman was the color of a black diamond. She appeared to be in her thirties and had blood red lips. Her hair was straight and flowed down to her waist, but was unkempt. As his vision further adjusted to the room, he could see she held a short spear in the other hand. Her nails were the same brilliant red color as her lips. She was also barefoot.
“Pardon the spear,” she apologized. “But we can’t assume anyone knocking on the door is a friend. I’m Kiley Mahen. We’ve been expecting you, Dion.”
“You know my name,” he stated. Somehow, this wasn’t a surprise.
“I know a lot about you,” she told him. “The elemental grandmaster you need to find isn’t here, but she’s supposed to be back soon. The sooner the better for all our sakes. Come upstairs with me, I’ll get you some dry clothes and everything will be explained.”
Dion heard a rumble to his right and turned to look. The lamp cast long shadows in the room they were inside and Dion noticed the large boxes and crates piled around them. They were in some kind of storage area or warehouse with wooden crates piled every place. He saw all manner of tools and metal piled up in on corner. The level they were on, the ground floor, was easily two levels high to accommodate whatever they needed to bring into to the tower. The stairs to the tower where built into one side of it. He could see the doorway leading up to the next level.
“You bring people into this room?” Dion asked her. “Guests are shown the warehouse?”
“This tower was built for defense,” she told him. “It has guarded the Borgia Pass for the past thousand years. It’s only in the last hundred years the pass was at peace. We were sold the tower because no one thought there was the possibility of invasion again. Besides, air power takes out any reason for a huge fortress such as this place represents. Do you want to go upstairs and get into some dry clothes or do you prefer to stay down here and shiver?”
Dion was about to apologize when he heard the rumbling noised and turned to look again. The light had cast a beam on the bars of a cage. No, it was another entrance of some kind. The bars blocked something from entering the bottom level of the tower. This had to be the small, attached building he noted on his approach to the tower. From the bars, he could see the eyes of something very big stare at him with hunger.
“That’s Draco,” she told him. “We keep him in the former stables. Don’t need to keep teams of horses in reser
ve any longer since the tower doesn’t guard the pass. There is a barn out back for the ones we need. We do use the old stables to keep Draco inside when the weather is bad. Can’t let him run free in the tower, too dangerous. He has plenty of room to hunt outside when the weather is good. Keeps the deer population under control and people away.”
She held the lantern up a little bit higher and Dion could see the face of a very big adult lion that starred at them from the bars. The beast didn’t look very friendly and all Dion could see in those eyes was a big cat who considered him dinner. “Draco” growled again, the source of the rumbling noise he’d heard.
“That cage door is locked?” Dion said to her.
“Of course,” Kiley replied. “How stupid do you think we are? Draco is a wild animal. Always will be. The only reason we have him here is for protection. Now come on, don’t you want to see the rest of the tower?”
He followed her to the stairwell. His shoes made a squish every time they touched the stone steps. Water still dripped off him. The stairwell felt chilly, it was obvious the tower lacked any kind of central heating. He wanted to ask the women where they were, but Dion decided to take his time about gathering information. She’s known his name when he arrived and acted as if he was expected. Plus, she knew about the Aether Grandmaster he needed to locate.
At least the grandmaster didn’t appear to be in danger. One of the reasons for his trip to the clock tower in the mall was to rescue her and obtain full aether elemental powers. But, according to this woman, she was gone. At least for the moment.