The Red Tower (The Five Towers Book 2)

by J. B. Simmons

  The memory of the creature makes me shudder. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Maybe a dragon. It’s terrible. I don’t need to know more.”

  Seymour moves on to another topic, spewing more information about the tower. He explains that most meals have some form of bacon or pork, because the Red Tower has hundreds of pigs. They also harvest onions and beans and herbs from the surrounding mountainside. Seymour lists herbs like they’re his best friends. He gives categories. He describes flavors. I start to zone out, wondering why this tower would make the boys and girls so different. We were treated like equals in Blue.

  As we round about the thirtieth turn since leaving my little cave room, we reach a larger hallway. It is made of the same red rock, but here the walls are polished smooth. The hallway is straight, flat, and at least three times as wide and as tall as the other tunnels that weave through the tower. Dozens of blazing torches make the walls look alive.

  Seymour leads me into the hallway and we fall into step with a group that has just emerged from a doorway on the opposite side. The boys are wearing reddish brown leather like me. But the four girls with them all wear sequined red dresses that glitter in the torchlight. Two of them wear ruby rings. Their fingernails look painted red.

  “Hey Pig,” one of the boys says, eyeing Seymour before he glances at me with his hard, narrow eyes. He has a scraggly black beard, deep voice, and the same kind of collar around his neck. He looks very familiar. “Who’s your new friend?” he asks.

  “He’s Cipher,” Seymour says. “And he’s not just a new friend. He’s the boy wonder from the Blue Tower who can control the wind, so you better watch what you say.”

  The boy laughs as he steps closer to me. “Pigs have spines after all. Cipher, I’m Axe.”

  He holds out his hand. As we shake I look into his eyes and remember. I force myself to hide my shock. The beard and the clothes masked it at first. But it’s Max. The same Max from the Blue Tower, the one who mocked Kiyo, the one I blasted out of his chair and beat in the boat race. After that he showed up in the Red Tower and attacked me, without remembering me. Why did he change his name? He clearly doesn’t remember me now. So we get a fresh start. Sort of.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “I heard about you,” he says. “Wind won’t help you much here. It’s not allowed, and anyway—” he flexes his bicep and smiles—“it can’t break iron or stone.”

  “Take it easy on him,” says one of the girls. She walks forward to my other side and slides her arm into mine like she’s my escort. Her fingers warm my skin. She smells like cinnamon and cedar.

  Seymour falls into step behind us, quiet for once.

  “I’m Boleyn,” she says, sounding almost as refined as she looks. “We’re always glad to have new boys in Red, especially ones who have brought a little intelligence from Blue.”

  “Wait, there’s no intelligence here?”

  She laughs. “You’re funny. I like that.”

  I murmur thanks but my attention is stolen by the room ahead.

  “The Feasting Hall,” Boleyn says, releasing my arm and walking forward into it. She holds out her arms and spins, her dress twirling above the ground. “Dazzling, isn’t it?”

  It is. The room looks two hundred feet long, with a ceiling a hundred feet high. Flames burn in midair halfway up, suspended by nothing and burning bright red. Three boys bang three huge drums on the opposite side of the room, making a steady bump, bump, bump that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. A long table runs down the center of the room, stretching the entire length and leading to a raised dais on one end. Two thrones are on the dais, one larger than the other. Both thrones look chiseled straight from the red rock of the hall. Behind the thrones there’s a view of mountains. The bright blue sky above the peaks makes me think of the sun. Maybe I’ll see it here. Maybe I could like Red.

  A huge dark shape soars into view over the mountains, then descends behind a ridge. Too big to be a bird. I watch breathlessly for it to appear again, but it doesn’t. My gaze settles onto the larger throne, where Rahab sits. The smaller throne to her right is empty. Her auburn hair radiates in the ruby red light from the suspended flames above. Seeing the flying shape, and now her, reminds me again of the creature below. Okay, maybe I won’t like Red. Blue was calmer, cooler. There were no monsters there, only a few sharks and sea creatures that we could watch peacefully from the underwater dining room.

  “Come on, Cipher.” Seymour pulls at my arm. “I’ll show you your seat. It’s probably beside mine.”

  He leads me away from Max, Boleyn, and the others. There are open seats halfway down the long table. I remember the latest tally of the towers’ numbers that I saw in Blue. Red was in third place. It looks like there are almost a hundred boys and girls in the room.

  “This is your spot,” Seymour says. “See, there’s your name.”

  There’s a black rock the size of my fist on the table. The rock is shaped like a flame and has the word Cipher carved into it. In front of the seat to the left there’s another rock with Seymour’s name. There are no rocks to the right. The table and the benches to my right are empty. Dozens more could fit.

  “So I get the last spot?” I ask.

  “For now,” Seymour says. “But you can work your way up, no doubt.”

  “How?”

  “Oh lots of ways. There’s the Arena, where you can fight. There’s journeys out of the tower to get things that we need. There’s...well, I don’t even know all the ways.”

  “What’s the Arena?” I ask.

  “Where we compete for girls. You’ll see soon enough.”

  “Have you fought there?”

  Seymour’s freckled cheeks flush pink. “I’m not much of a fighter.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  He laughs nervously. “As long as I can remember. Hey, I gotta go serve the food now, okay? Just sit tight. I’ll be back.”

  He lumbers away, leaving me alone.

  I look down the length of the table. The boys all sit on one side, and the girls on the other. I scan the faces, hoping to see a girl who looks like a younger version of my Mom. None of them look familiar. Most of the others are talking and laughing loudly. The crowd’s noise echoes along with the drumbeat through the hall. Seymour and a few others are serving bowls and spoons to everyone, starting at the top of the table, nearest to the throne.

  After a while a girl sits across from me. She’s wearing a glimmering red dress like all the others. She waves and says hi. It’s hard to hear her across the wide table, and over the noise of the room. She keeps her bright green eyes on me.

  When Seymour returns with his bowl and mine, he tells me he’s starving after all that work and digs in. Beans with strips of bacon fill the bowl. It’s not bad. I’m halfway through the food when the drummers suddenly increase their rhythm and finish with a loud crescendo. For a moment there is silence. The room feels hollow.

  “Welcome to the Red Feasting Hall,” Rahab announces. She stands in front of her throne, but it sounds like she’s standing right beside me. She must have some power to project her voice. “We have two new members since our last Scouring. Cipher and Henrietta, stand.”

  I stand, and so does the girl across from me. There’s a round of tepid applause and we sit again.

  “This brings us to 90,” Rahab says. “We remain near our lowest numbers. There was a time when we filled two tables like this. Now we have grown weak, as Black has grown strong. Even Blue has passed us. We must do better. Girls, you may choose your pair any time. Choose wisely. Only with strong pairs will we win. Boys, your assignments are on the bottoms of your stones. There are two days until the next Scouring. Let passion burn. Thrive like fire.”

  Rahab sits. The drums thump back into life, and a murmur of voices spreads again through the room. Seymour picks up his flame-shaped stone. He lifts it with two hands above his head, eyeing the bottom of it.

  “I’m seventeen,” he says, turning to
me. “You?”

  I pick up my stone. It’s as heavy as iron. Underneath there’s a number written in chalk white. “Seventeen.”

  4

  THE FEASTING HALL bursts into action as the crowd rises from the long table. People move toward the far wall, where a chalkboard is covered in writing.

  “Come on, Cipher,” Seymour says, tugging at my sleeve. “Let’s go see what task seventeen is. It could be anything! I don’t remember seeing it. I know all about the others. Fourteen is the best number I’ve gotten. Guess I got demoted...”

  “So the lower, the better?” I ask, following him. “What’s fourteen?”

  “It’s serving food and bringing newcomers like you to the Hall. But I’ve never had a boy with memories before. How’d I do?”

  “Good,” I say, though I hardly feel qualified to judge. “What’s number one?”

  “The Scouring,” Seymour says. “Twelve people get that one. It’s a high honor. Six boys. Six girls. All of the strongest. We want to win, you know?”

  I nod along, but that’s not how it was in the Blue Tower, where we were organized by classes and trained as teams. Blue may have been cold, but at least it maintained order.

  Seymour tells me about the other assignments he’s had since the last time he was wiped. His favorite is pig duty, number sixteen, which he usually gets. There are four pig-duty assignments: feeding, cleaning, butchering, and cooking.

  “The best is feeding,” Seymour says. “The pigs love it.”

  As we join the crowd gathering in front of the board, boys are calling out numbers.

  One again!

  Hey, any fours?

  Who else is a six?

  I got nine.

  These announcements lead to constant shuffling as the boys maneuver around to find each other and form groups with their numbers. The girls add to the chaos. They are interspersed everywhere, watching the boys, like they’re sizing us up, like we’re cattle.

  “You,” one of the girls says, pointing to a tall boy in front of me. “You’re group number four?”

  The boy bows before the girl like she’s a queen. “Yes. Drums.”

  “Good. I like drummers.” She reaches down and touches the silver link at the back of his neck. The boy rises and takes her hand. He has a spring to his step as the two of them walk away together.

  This happens over and over as we press our way through the boys. Whenever a boy gets picked, the next boy just steps into his place.

  None of the girls picks me. I shouldn’t care. I don’t even know what it means. But there’s something demoralizing about watching dozens of others get chosen while I keep trudging forward with the other boys. No one wants to get picked last.

  I finally get close enough to see the list of assignments on the board. Each one is written in big block letters.

  1. SCOURING

  2. BEHEMOTH

  3. SIGNAL FIRE

  4. FEAST DRUMS

  5. WEAPONS

  6. ARENA GUARD

  7. RUNNERS

  My eyes scan over the others and see a bunch of boring chores. Cleaning, laundry, dishes, and pig duty. They are not too different than what we had to do in the Blue Tower. But the last task is:

  17. DRAGON TEETH

  At first it seems like some kind of joke, making me smile. Dragon teeth? What, like brushing them? Drawing them? My smile fades as I look over the list again and remember the creature. Number two is “behemoth”—and I remember that’s a word for a mythical beast. Is that what Rahab made me see under the tower? It’s ridiculous, but the idea of doing anything connected to that monster makes me shake a little in fear. It’s like the beast has gained some kind of power over me.

  “Oh no. No, no, no,” Seymour is saying. “Not good. Not fair! I made it all the way to number fourteen, newbie welcome, and now this? I feed the pigs, that’s what I do. I don’t leave the tower to go hunting for dragon teeth!”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  He looks at me startled, like he’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, Cipher, this is bad news. I’m sorry you had to start with this. It’s not fair, not at all. Now I remember this assignment. Haven’t seen it myself, but you know how rumors get around. People say, occasionally, a group has to leave the tower for the mountains, and to bring back...dragon teeth.”

  “Seriously?”

  A hand clasps my shoulder firmly. It’s Max, or apparently Axe as he’s known here in Red. A stunning blonde girl in a long red dress stands beside him, with a finger running idly over the silver link at his neck. She wears a large ruby ring. She looks like she belongs at a royal ball. He looks like he belongs in a gladiator’s arena.

  “Oooh, tough luck, boys,” he says. “The last ones who had number seventeen were killed. Eaten, actually.”

  “I— I don’t want to go,” Seymour whimpers. “I can’t fight a dragon...”

  “That’s life, or whatever,” Axe laughs and gives Seymour a friendly—or maybe not friendly—punch in the shoulder. “Here’s your chance to toughen up, Pig.” He holds out his stone, flipped over so the number 1 shows. He puts his other arm around the shoulder of the girl, who looks at us like we’re children. “Maybe you’ll get to pair with a real girl someday and go to the Scouring,” he says. “Maybe your new grunt friend will help you bring back a tooth. But hey, in case you get eaten, it’s been nice knowing you!”

  He and the girl walk off toward another group. Seymour’s hands cover his face.

  “Hey man, don’t listen to them,” I say. Max’s name change to Axe doesn’t seem to have changed anything else about him. He’s still making everyone around him feel small.

  “But he’s Axe!” Seymour says. “He’s the strongest boy here. He could even be the next Alpha!”

  “What’s that mean?” I ask.

  “The Alpha is the first boy. He gets special privileges. He’s the only one who doesn’t wear a collar. The rest of us boys, you know, stay in the Barracks and serve the girls.”

  “So who’s the Alpha now?”

  “We don’t have one. The last Alpha got captured by Black, probably after he captured you. The only way we get another Alpha is if a boy captures someone else in the Scouring.”

  “So...Axe is no different than the rest of us.”

  “Of course he is! Just look at him. He’s strong. He even has a beard! He must have been here for ages without getting wiped. Aaaannnnd, he’s paired with Melissa. Everyone knows she summons more fire than any of the others. She’s...beautiful, perfect, whatever you want to call it. You saw her ring, right? That’s the Red Tower’s crown jewel, for the strongest girl. And she picked Axe. So yes, he is one to talk. And he’s right, we’re...”

  “No. He’s wrong,” I say, more confident than I feel. I’ve beaten Max before, so I’ll just have to find a way to do it again. “We’re going to get a dragon’s tooth.” I glance around and see mostly clusters of boys and girls together, but a few boys still wander alone through the crowd.

  “Any seventeens?” I ask, but my voice is swallowed by the room’s noise, the drums. I focus and pull on a little of the air and use it to project my voice, like Rahab did. “SEVENTEENS?”

  The drums stop. Silence snaps over the room, like the air was sucked out.

  But it wasn’t me. I just pulled a little of the wind. Still, every eye is suddenly on me. I must have been...loud.

  The group around me begins to part. Rahab walks through them, straight toward me. Heads swing from her to me, and from me to her, as she approaches. Her dress looks like a million tiny rubies glued together. The room is insanely quiet for how loud it was a moment ago. I can hear my own heart thumping.

  Rahab stops in front of me. She has faint lines by her eyes, and the way they press together shows anger—not some young impassioned fury, but like a mother scolding her child. “You’re the one who said seventeens?”

  I look down at my feet. “Yes.”

  “Look at me, boy.” Her finger reaches under my chin and the poin
t of her bright red nail is like a dagger at my neck, lifting my gaze. Her other hand rises to her side, palm up, and a flame suddenly appears above it. The metal band around my neck feels hot, almost searing my skin. “Boys may not use powers in my tower,” she says. “You understand?”

  No, I don’t understand. In the Blue Tower anyone could use whatever power they have. This woman could set me on fire, or feed me to the giant creature down below. I have to be able to use my power.

  “I’m new here,” I say, sounding more defensive than I wanted. “I don’t know the rules yet. Anyway, how am I supposed to bring back a dragon’s tooth without my power?”

  Her lips curve into a smile. “Boys must be brave. Sometimes the most audacious tasks are given to the weakest. Then you can prove yourself.”

  It’s not hard to catch her meaning. I’m small. I’m weak. And apparently so is Seymour. But I’m not afraid.

  I’m angry.

  And when I’m angry, my power grows. I begin weaving the air around us, channeling it like streams of water through the red light. The streams merge and grow. All this happens in an instant. I set a wall between Rahab and me. Then I gather a huge gust above us in the air and send it flailing through the room, as hard and as fast as I can. The torches above blow out and darkness falls, except for the flame above Rahab’s hand.

  Screams fill the Hall.

  People start to scramble over each other.

  I ignore the sounds. I focus the gusting air to target Rahab’s flame, but it doesn’t budge. Instead she steps forward, right through the wall that I’ve made, and she holds her hand up so that the fire flickers inches from my face. The power is yanked out of my grasp. The band burns at my neck. The flames burst back into light above.

  The Hall is bright again. Everyone goes still.

  “Enough,” Rahab demands, her face aglow. “Did you try to resist Abram?”

  I hold her stare but don’t answer.

  “I didn’t think so,” she says. “And why not? Because he’s a man with a staff, and because I’m a woman in a dress?”