The Lost Tower

by Eric Martinez

  She frowned. “So it was all about information? Then why keep abducting more once you got it?”

  “It started as gathering intelligence, but now, we have much bigger plans for them.”

  Her eyes widened. “So they’re still alive? Do you know a mage named Myrina?”

  Moros laughed. “Magnus’s woman. Oh yes. I interrogated her myself.”

  “So she is alive?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You know, it was quite the surprise to see Magnus with you on this quest. She kept telling me about him. How strong and brave he was, and how he would come for her and rescue her. I rather enjoyed watching the hope fade from her eyes when he never showed up. You can tell him I said that.”

  “You fucking monster,” she spat. “They’re supposed to get married.”

  Moros shook his head. “Not anymore. She’ll be my bride now. Once I bring these home.” He held up the sack and shook it again. “Speaking of which, I should be on my way.”

  Moving with pure strength of will, Sephi ran at Moros. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Before she could reach him, the Nyx hopped down through the hole in the floor, landing nimbly on his hooves. Without a second thought, Sephi jumped down after him, but her descent was far less graceful. In her weakened state, she couldn’t stick the landing, and something in her leg snapped and flared with intense pain.

  Moros looked at her like he was impressed. “It has been interesting to know you, Persephone Blue, but if we ever meet again, it will be as enemies.”

  She looked up at him sadly. “We don’t have to be on opposite sides. We can choose a different path.”

  Moros met her gaze with a thoughtful expression. “That’s a nice thought. That maybe things could be different.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “But they’re not. The sides have been chosen for us. We never got a say in the matter.”

  He turned and ran through the open doors leading out to Tartarus. Then he was gone from sight.

  Sephi roared with frustration, and the movement jarred her injured leg, turning the roar into a moan of pain. The tower groaned around her like it felt her rage and grief too.

  Some time later, her friends reached the bottom floor and gathered at her side. Echo helped Magnus along, and even through her pain, Sephi thought it was funny seeing the smaller Green support the massive warrior. Francisco walked with a bit of a limp, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “Moros escaped with the Whispers,” Sephi said. “I failed.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Francisco said. “Right now, we need to get the hell out of here before this whole tower comes down around our ears.” He knelt by Sephi and placed his hand on her arm. “Can you walk?”

  She shook her head. “I think I broke something.”

  “I can fix that as soon as we’re out of this accursed place. For now, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.” He slid his hands beneath her and lifted her up in his arms. “Let’s go.”

  Francisco hurried to the door while Echo and Magnus limped up behind them. They emerged into Tartarus under gray skies which seemed too bright after the dim lights inside. Crashing sounds of falling stone rumbled from behind them.

  “Keep moving,” Francisco said, managing to run on his gimpy leg. “We have to get away before it collapses.”

  Sephi lifted her head to peek over the Brother’s shoulder to see Echo and Magnus struggling to keep up. Sweat beaded on the Green’s forehead, and Magnus looked like all the blood had drained from his face. His shoulder wound slowed him down considerably. It must have been a lot worse than it looked, and she wondered what they would find when they removed his armor to fix him up.

  They had all gotten hurt in that tower, although some of the wounds were more than physical. Sephi’s broken leg would heal, but she doubted she would ever recover from the reunion with her father.

  “Hey,” she said suddenly. “Did you see my father up there when you came down? Was he still alive?”

  Francisco shook his head. “We didn’t see him at all.”

  Sephi’s brow furrowed. “No, you had to have run past him. He was lying on the floor somewhere around level seven. There should have been some crazy dark magic stuff going on over his body.” She touched the blade at her hip, wondering what it said about her father if the corruption had failed to kill him.

  “We saw a bunch of dead warlocks around there,” Francisco said. “But not your father. Sorry.”

  Could he have gotten away? Knowing him and how he’d schemed to fake his own death when she was a child, she wouldn’t put it past him to find a way out of the tower while she slowly chased down Moros. He could have gone invisible and walked right past her.

  The more she thought about it, the surer she was that he had escaped. It was the only explanation for why her friends hadn’t seen him on their way down. One thing was for sure. She would hunt that motherfucker down, no matter where he was hiding, and she would finish what she started.

  They saw no sign of Moros as they hurried back toward the cavern entrance. He must have made it through long before them and escaped. She vowed to herself that she would find him, too. After today, she had a lot of scores to settle, and she would stop at nothing to make sure everyone got what they deserved.

  She tapped Francisco on the shoulder before they got to the caverns. “Stop, please. Put me down.”

  He frowned. “What? Why?”

  She pointed back at the tower. “I want to see.”

  He did as she asked, and they all stopped to gaze back at Zekariah’s lost tower. The burning black sun above its peak crackled and distorted, as if the instability of the tower made it unstable too. As they watched, the black orb exploded in a shower of darkness, obliterating the top of the tower.

  The blast finished what Asterion started when he cracked open the floors and ceilings. The charcoal gray walls tumbled in on themselves until the tower was nothing but a pile of rubble. The crashing tower sent a dust cloud out in every direction, strong enough that it reached Sephi and her friends, stinging their eyes.

  With the tower gone, the enchantment hiding it seemed to dissipate too. The dark orb must have been fueling the enchantment, sucking the living energy from the land continuously. Now that it had been destroyed, she wondered if Tartarus could finally start healing from the damage that had been done to it.

  She watched as the invisible walls that kept this place separated from the rest of Tartarus flickered and then blinked out.

  She looked at her friends. “You know, it might not be the best idea to travel back to the Cradle through the palace. Who knows if more warlocks are waiting for us up there or even my father?”

  “Then how do you suggest we get back?” Magnus asked.

  “Echo and I know of a secret tunnel nearby,” she said. “The walk will be just as long, but it should be a hell of a lot safer. I vote we head that way. Francisco, if you don’t mind?”

  He smiled and picked her up again. “Not at all.”

  Chapter 26

  They entered the secret tunnel through the opening hidden below a craggy overhang at the base of the mountains. Echo pulled her lantern from her satchel to banish the shadows and light their path. Magnus walked with his hand on her shoulder to support his injured frame, and Francisco carried Sephi in his surprisingly strong arms. After a few minutes of walking, Francisco let out a triumphant yell and commanded everyone to stop.

  “My power is back,” he said, smiling. “Time to mend everyone.”

  Sephi looked up at him. “If you were tired of carrying me, you could have just said so.”

  He smiled warmly at her and shook his head. “I’ll happily carry you back to the Citadel if you’d like. You weigh next to nothing.”

  She patted him kindly on the shoulder, and he laid her gently on the ground. “Thank you, Brother. For carrying me and for saying that. My father reminded me how fat I was when I was younger.”

  Echo made an offended sound on her friend’s behalf.
“What an asshole.”

  Sephi laughed. “I know, right? Mind you, that was just after he told me he tried to murder me on my birthday. Somehow, him calling me chunky hurt almost as much.” Her friends all gaped at her with surprise, but she continued on. “I mean, I get it. He’s a warlock. He’s evil. But did he have to be such a dick?”

  She made light of the revelations her father sprang on her, but it was mostly to hide the deep pain their reunion had caused. Now that the immediate danger had passed and her adrenaline faded, the enormity of her father’s treachery weighed down on her.

  She needed something to distract her before the heavy burden crushed her completely.

  “But we can talk about all that later.” She clapped her hands together. “All right, Brother. Use your magic to get started on Magnus. He seems to need your healing the most.”

  Magnus didn’t protest or suggest someone else get treated first, which told Sephi that he was in serious pain. He lowered himself to sit on the cave floor, although it was more of a controlled fall than actually sitting down. When his butt hit the stone, he winced and his hand clasped his wounded shoulder.

  Echo and Francisco helped to remove his bulky breastplate, unfastening the leather straps and buckles as quickly as they could without jostling him too much. Echo peeled off his bloody white undershirt with a slight flush to her cheeks. She gasped when she saw the brutal damage to the warrior’s shoulder.

  The spell had shredded the skin and muscle in a wide radius, and the wound went all the way through to his back. Sephi’s eyes widened, and her hand covered her mouth. She had no idea how he had walked out of the tower at all. His perseverance was a testament to his strength.

  Echo’s eyes filled with tears. “You shouldn’t have taken that hit for me. You could have been killed.”

  Magnus met her gaze and smiled weakly. Then he looked away quickly as if he felt guilty.

  Francisco laid one hand on the Red’s chest and the other on his back, muttering the words of a healing spell. The gash began to close up almost instantly, and Magnus gritted his teeth against the pain.

  As the spell continued to repair the damaged flesh, Francisco watched the healing. “Honestly, as bad as this is, it’s a damn good thing Magnus stepped in. Judging from the extent of the damage, blunting that blast is the only reason it didn’t kill you outright, Echo.”

  “So you saved my life,” she said quietly. “Thank you, Magnus.”

  “You would have done the same for me,” he said, looking up at her again. His deep voice sounded stronger now.

  Sephi considered pointing out that she had saved Echo’s life, too, but she didn’t want to call attention to the fact that she’d used a blood magic spell to heal her friend. Besides, the two of them seemed to be having a moment together. No reason to interrupt.

  In the time they had been friends, Sephi had never known Echo to show interest in a guy. The Green was always too busy tinkering with projects or losing herself in a book to pay much attention to anything else. Sephi liked seeing this side of her friend, and Echo deserved a chance to indulge in her little crush while she could.

  At some point, Sephi would have to tell Magnus what Moros had revealed about Myrina, and that would be a grim reminder that nothing could ever become of Echo’s infatuation with the warrior. The man was spoken for. Even if he shared Echo’s feeling, Magnus was too honorable to break his vows to Myrina.

  She decided to wait until they got back to the Citadel before telling Magnus what she’d learned. Knowing him, he would want to rush off immediately to chase down the Nyx, and without proper preparation, all that would do was get him killed. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Sephi had respected the serious Red from the beginning, despite their differences, but after everything they’d been through together, she kind of liked him now. Not the way Echo liked him, of course, but she felt a certain kinship with him.

  They had fought alongside one another and bled together, and that was a bond that could very well last a lifetime. She silently promised she would be at his side when he found his kidnapped betrothed, and she would make Moros pay for what he had done.

  She wondered what Moros had meant when he said that Myrina was his bride now. Had the goatman just been messing with her head, or did he intend to force Magnus’s bride-to-be into some kind of unholy union?

  She had no way of knowing for sure, but she knew that she would leave that detail out when telling Magnus what she’d learned, along with the bit about the hope fading from her eyes when he never showed up.

  Hearing the news would be hard enough on the Red. He didn’t need to picture what might be happening to Myrina while in the Nyx’s captivity. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway until they tracked the goatman down. No sense in making him suffer before then.

  Francisco moved away from Magnus, leaving Echo to fuss over him while he insisted he was fine.

  “Let’s see about that leg,” Francisco said, kneeling beside Sephi. He ran his hands gently over her shin. Even with his light touch, when he reached the spot just above her ankle, pain flared through every nerve ending in her body, and she hissed through her teeth.

  “Easy, Brother,” she said, clenching her fists until her fingernails dug into her palm.

  “It’s definitely broken,” he said.

  “Thanks for the update. Can you fix it please?”

  He glanced quickly at Magnus and Echo. The two were laughing about something quietly. Echo lifted the hem of her shirt slightly to show him the little puckered scar on her stomach where her own wound had been. It looked kind of like a second belly button. Not bad, considering the wound had almost killed her.

  Francisco looked back at Sephi. “I saw what you did up there when you healed her,” he said quietly.

  She considered playing dumb, but the certainty in his eyes made her discard the idea. She sighed. “Yeah.”

  “You shouldn’t have used blood magic,” he said, still talking softly enough that Echo and Magnus shouldn’t be able to hear.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know it’s forbidden, but what was I supposed to do? Just let her die?”

  His brow furrowed. “I’m happy you saved her, of course, but dark magic is nothing to be trifled with.”

  “It was a matter of life and death,” she said. “I wasn’t trifling with anything.”

  “How did you even know that spell?” he asked, leaning closer. “Have you used dark magic before?”

  Sephi shot him a withering glare. “Absolutely not. That was the first time. It’s something I saw in the Whispers, and believe me, that was the least repulsive spell I saw in there by far.”

  His eyes widened. “So you read the Whispers?”

  She shook her head. “Only a few different spells, but they were dark, Brother. And powerful. Too powerful for anyone to possess. And from what my father said, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what kind of terrible secrets still lay hidden in their depths?”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “It seems the legends surrounding the Whispers were true, then. No wonder so many would sacrifice so much to obtain them.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But anyone who wants that kind of power can’t be trusted to have it. The only consolation is that the information is encrypted. Maybe someone can crack the code, but as of right now, no one else can read them.”

  Francisco lifted an eyebrow. “Then how could you read them?”

  She sighed. “It’s a long story, which I’ll gladly explain to you someday over a bottle of fortified absinthe. The short answer is magic.” She paused. “Listen, I would appreciate if you didn’t tell the others what I did to save Echo. I don’t want them looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

  Francisco averted his gaze. “I won’t say anything. For now. As long as that was the first and last time.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “That was almost certainly the only time I’ll ever use it.”

  “Almost c
ertainly?” he asked, giving her a hard look.

  She fidgeted with her hands, feeling uncomfortable. “Well, yeah. I mean, I did it to save my friend’s life. I don’t regret it, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

  He shook his head. “And that is the problem with using blood magic. It’s a slippery slope. Once you’ve opened the door, it’s too easy to walk through it again and again. Before you know it, the darkness is a part of you, and there’s no coming back.”

  She bristled at his tone, but then she thought about the second spell from the Whispers she’d used, the one that boiled the warlocks’ blood in their veins. Using that spell hadn’t been to save a friend’s life. She had cast it because it was convenient. Just because she could.

  She knew everything Francisco was telling her was true, although she decided not to tell him about the second spell. It would just deepen his suspicions.

  “I’ll be careful,” she said.

  “There is no such thing as being careful when it comes to the power of blood,” he said firmly.

  She cocked her head as she stared at him. “I have to ask. How do you know so much about dark magic?”

  His expression turned bitter. “Everyone in the Citadel who knew about my work accused me of being a warlock. It got to the point where they even had me convinced. To make sure they weren’t right about me, I studied everything I could about the Occultum’s magic. I learned how powerful it is, and I learned how seductive that power can be. Better mages than you have succumbed to its temptation.”

  Sephi had a feeling there was more to his knowledge than he was letting on, but she didn’t press the issue. She was more worried about defending herself against his subtle accusations than prying into his troubled past.

  “Look, I was out of power and out of options,” she said. “I did what I had to do.”

  “There are always other options,” he said. “And another time will come in the future when you find yourself in a similar position, weak and struggling, powerless and facing overwhelming odds. That’s when the darkness will beckon you, and that’s when you have to be strong enough to resist it.”