“You lived in China,” I say.
He waves his hand dismissively. “This means nothing. A lucky guess.”
“So I’m right about you?” I ask.
He grunts. He doesn’t deny it.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, fingers tapping silently on the white porcelain cup between my hands. “Wouldn’t you like to know more about your past?”
Max breathes in deeply, then looks to Kiyo.
“Go on,” she says, smiling encouragingly, “this can stay between us if you like.”
He turns back to me. “Tell me what you know about me.”
I smile. We’re all the same here, desperate to remember, even if it hurts, even if we have to do it over and over again. “I’m like you,” I say. “I also want to know about myself. That’s why we came here, to find two people I knew from before. One is Rose Fitzroy. She has brown eyes and long brown hair with a strand of white down the side. The other is Monica. She—” I hesitate, realizing I’ve never seen her full face here, only her eyes. Would she look like Samantha did as a younger girl? “She should have red hair,” I say. “Do you know if Rose or Monica are here?”
Kiyo glances to Max and whispers something that sounds like “number 9.” They must know at least one of them is here, somewhere.
“If you can help me find them,” I continue, “I’ll tell you everything I know about your past, and Kiyo’s. And I know a lot.”
“This sounds fair,” Kiyo says.
Max is shaking his head, but he doesn’t say no. “If this girl you call Rose were here,” he says, “what would you do if you found her?”
I want to say, take her back! But my mouth stays shut long enough to formulate a better response. “I want to talk with her, that’s all. I don’t know what comes after that.”
He leans back and crosses his arms. “You infiltrated our lands to talk to someone? Again you lie. You will not capture anyone here. No one leaves this village without my permission.”
“He’s right,” Kiyo says. “There are twelve of us here. The Masters would not look kindly on someone going missing. It won’t do us any good if you tell us about our pasts, only for us to get wiped again because we lost one of our villagers.”
“So bring the girl here,” Emma says. “You can guard her.”
“This might work...” Max rubs his chin as he thinks. The rest of us are quiet, watching him. With his severe eyes and square jaw, he looks every bit like a leader, or a Lord, as they apparently call him here. He takes a deep breath, as if making up his mind. “Whatever. Maybe they wipe us. Maybe they don’t. Tell us what you know, and if it’s good enough, we’ll bring the girl number 9 here and see what you would like to talk about.”
“Yes!” Kiyo says softly but excitedly. “Thank you!”
“Rice, more tea,” Max says. “And hot this time?”
“As you wish, Lord.” Kiyo bows and excuses herself from the table.
We sit in quiet. She returns shortly with steaming cups.
I start with Max’s story. I tell them everything from the Blue Tower, how he went by Max, but leave out the parts when I blew him out of his chair in my first class, beat him in the boat race, and when he shoved me off the pier into the water and got himself wiped. The rest of the story is not so bad. We were in the same class. He was a leader of our class in Blue, as he is here. But he was somehow captured by Red. With Red he rose quickly to Alpha, the leader of the tower. I say nothing of how he was captured by Black, and he doesn’t ask. Instead he asks what I know about his past on earth. I tell him the little I’d gleaned from Marcus. He was a very wealthy and powerful man in China. He had four daughters. There had been a conflict with one of them, but I didn’t know what had happened after that.
As Max listens, his expression slowly transforms from severe to distant to sad. “Do you remember their names?” he asks softly. “My daughters?”
“No,” I admit. “I’m sorry.”
“It is okay. I am glad to know what you have told me.” Max gestures to Kiyo. “Your turn, Rice.”
I give Kiyo’s story as gently as I can. I tell her about her cold journey in Japan, fleeing from enemies, protecting her five children through the mountains and the snow, only to lose her oldest. As I speak, her eyes soften as Max’s did. I think hearing the past gives them a glimmer of hope, reminding them that existence is more than this Black Tower.
The light outside begins to fade. A single candle on the table allows us to see each other dimly. I continue with Kiyo’s story through our time in the Blue Tower, through our battles together in the Scouring. When I finish, it’s quiet and dark outside.
“Thank you, Cipher.” Kiyo stands, her face solemn and pale. “I will think on this,” she says. “But first let’s sleep. I would like to dream tonight.”
39
EMMA AND I sleep on pallets in the dark room where I told Max’s and Kiyo’s stories. The next morning we wake to the smell of cooking rice and a rooster’s crow. Max and Kiyo sit again at the table, along with a third person. My Mom.
I take the seat across from her, meeting her eyes, waiting, hoping. Emma sits beside me. She squeezes my hand assuringly.
“Good morning,” Kiyo says to us. “We have brought who you wanted to see.”
“I’m Villager 9,” my Mom says, and her stiff, formal tone breaks my heart.
“I’m Cipher. This is Emma. We’ve met before.”
“Oh?” my Mom asks.
Kiyo and Max watch me curiously. There’s no reason to delay or avoid the topic, even if it tears me apart. “I’m your son,” I say. “Or, I was.”
“That’s cute.” My Mom smiles and looks to Kiyo. “Who is this boy?”
“I suspect he will tell you,” Kiyo says.
“My name was Paul Fitzroy. Yours was Rose Fitzroy. You gave birth to me in 1978, in a city called Chicago, in a country called the United States of America, on a planet called earth.”
She looks away from me, turning to Max. She’s no longer smiling. “Lord, is this true?”
I answer before Max can. “He doesn’t know. I know. I was your son. I’ve seen the past. You were in the Red Tower before Black caught you. They wiped your memories.”
“What does he mean?” she asks, ignoring me and looking from Max to Kiyo. “Wiped?”
“The Masters ensure we start clean,” Max says.
“Why?” she asks.
“It is not our place to question this.” Max does not sound entirely convinced. “We have our roles here, and we must perform them well. The best will rise to the top. It is right. It is just.”
This must be Black’s mantra. I don’t like it. “I’ve come from the Red Tower,” I say to my Mom, “It’s better there. You were one of the most powerful girls in Red. You had more freedom, more passion.” I motion to the drab surroundings—dark wooden floors, charcoal robes, and rice. “Come back with me and you will wear a silk dress and eat like a queen.”
“This is forbidden,” Max snaps. “But even if it was allowed, going to Red would be a tragic mistake. Red lacks control. Go to them and you will only be brought back here, with your memories erased again.”
My Mom calmly lifts her chopsticks and takes a bite of rice, chewing slowly. Her face is beautiful as ever, but disturbingly empty. Before she was everything I remembered. Now she is only a hollow shell. I wonder again at why our memories must be erased. How does this process help anything? Do our minds have to be empty so that they can be filled a certain way and renewed? And if so, why haven’t I been wiped yet? My Mom must be reeling to be rediscovering memories for the second or third or hundredth time. I would be.
“Mom,” I say gently, “what are you thinking?”
“This person you say I was...will you tell me more about her?”
“I will tell you what I know. I think it will start coming back to you. You seemed to remember nearly everything when we last talked in Red. You filled in so many gaps for me.”
She studies Max thoughtfully.
“The Masters say that when our minds are properly disciplined and filled, then we may leave through the white light. This boy says he can help. Is that possible?”
Max opens his mouth to answer, but stops, as if surprised by his thoughts. “It may be possible.”
“I see.” My Mom turns to me. “I will go with you.”
“No, this is not possible.” Max rises to his feet, with any trace of uncertainty now gone. He glares at me. “You said you would only talk.”
I shake my head. I never promised that. “She’s coming with me,” I say.
He draws his sword faster than I can take a breath. It’s at my neck again, only this time it’s at the front, the jugular.
Staying still, my eyes glance to Kiyo, wondering, will she shut down my power again?
She seems to understand, as she gives a slight nod. Maybe she’ll let me go.
I seize the air and blast the sword out of Max’s hands before he can move it. I coil air around him like chains and fling him to the floor, sliding until he hits the far wall, just as I’d done ages ago in the Blue Tower.
Emma hurries to my Mom. “Come, come,” she’s saying.
I hold out my hand to Kiyo. “Let’s go.”
She shakes her head.
“You can’t stay!” I protest. “Come to the Red Tower with us. It is much better there. You will be welcome.”
Kiyo doesn’t budge. “I cannot leave,” she says. “I am Rice. My place is here now. Someone must protect the others in the village.”
“Let the Lord handle that,” I say.
“No,” she replies. “It is my responsibility.”
Kiyo and I go back and forth like this a few more times, but she will not change her mind. Emma tells me we must go, that my power will be detected, that it could be stopped any moment. She’s right. I give in, torn by getting my Mom back but leaving Kiyo behind.
We rush out without wasting more time. Outside, the whole village is gathered around, but oblivious to us. They look toward the Black Tower. When I follow their gaze, I see a cloud of smoke billowing out of the tower, except it’s not like smoke from a fire. Its movements are too organized, too deliberate. The blackness flows like a river, racing straight at us.
“Come on!” Emma tugs at my sleeve. “We have to go!”
I begin to move after her and my Mom, but running won’t work. The smoke is coming too fast, and I feel certain that when it reaches us my powers will be smothered. We will be caught. We will be wiped.
My eyes look up, to the ridge looming above. It’s all that separates us from Red. It would be better than going through the tunnels and the terrible darkness there. If only we could get over the ridge...
“Stop, wait,” I say, and Emma and my Mom turn back to me. Emma has powers from Yellow and Red. I have Blue. Maybe my Mom has some of Black’s power already. That would be four colors, four powers. “I’m going to try something.”
I concentrate and form a cloud of air. It begins to lift us off the ground, but the weight is too much. I won’t be able to carry us all the way over the mountain ridge and down to the Red Tower.
“Let me have control.” Emma does not wait for me to agree. She seems to know what I was thinking. She pulls the power away and begins to weave the four colors into a solid structure before us. She makes stairs leading up toward the ridge above, but they rise only twenty feet.
“Start climbing.” Her words are strained. She grips my hand tight. “I can’t make more, but it should be enough.”
I don’t understand, but she must have a plan. As we begin to climb the stairs together, with my Mom in the front, Emma begins to move the stairs, looping the stairs behind us to the front, over and over, like we’re on a giant ball rolling up an invisible hillside. My Mom watches all this in shock, her face pale.
We rise quickly. The view down is astonishing. The villagers’ mouths hang open, but soon we are so far away that we can no longer make out their expressions. Yet still the dark smoke races from the tower toward us, closing the distance.
Emma weaves and weaves, propelling us forward and up. The amount of power she holds is like nothing I’ve ever seen. She staggers from the effort. I brace myself against her, keeping her uneasy legs from buckling. A fall from this height would mean death. Would I wake up here in Black, or in Red? I’d rather not find out.
We’re almost within reach of the ridge when the rolling stairs shimmer as if they could blink away any moment. Emma looks back frantically. I follow her gaze to the bottom of the floating stairway, where the smoke has grabbed us.
“Take it,” Emma gasps.
I seize the weave of power and continue forging it as Emma had. The effort of weaving four colors at once is monumental, debilitating. It’s amazing that Emma sustained it so long.
My Mom steps off the top stair and onto the ridge, which falls steeply on both sides. She holds out her hand to us. “Jump!” she shouts.
The smoke hits me. The power is gone. The stairs are gone.
Just as the surface beneath me vanishes, I take Emma’s hand and we leap onto the narrow ridge. Our momentum makes us crash into my Mom, tangling the three of us as we slip on the icy surface. We slide down with nothing to grab, faster and faster, until we slam against a reddish boulder jutting up from the steep, snowy ground.
The boulder saved us. Past it, there’s a cliff drop and open sky. The black smoke hovers above at the ridgeline but doesn’t come closer, as if an invisible wall stops it from entering Red’s lands.
We made it. But we can’t stay here. The wind howls like madness. The air is thin as a sheet, making it hard to breathe. The cold bites, turning my sweat into ice. The Red Tower is hundreds of feet below us.
“What now?” my Mom shouts over the wind.
We huddle close together, with our backs to the boulder. I feel completely drained after how much power it took to get here. I can barely catch breath. My power won’t be enough to get us down.
“Can you carry us again?” I ask Emma.
Her gaze is distant. She shakes her head. She mouths the words, “Too weak.”
A gust of wind blasts over us. It is so cold.
We really might die here. At least we’ll wake up in Red. Maybe Rahab will have mercy on us and give us our memories back quickly. I begin to wonder whether a cliff dive or freezing is the better way to go.
“You are both very powerful,” my Mom says, through chattering teeth. She still has blankness in her eyes, but she’s also surprisingly calm. “We...walked on air. It has been good knowing you.”
The words hurt. She doesn’t remember.
Emma takes my Mom’s hand. “I’m glad we met. Cipher has told me a lot about you. I was a mother, too, but...only briefly.” Emma shivers and looks away.
The thought of their memories, these two mothers, makes me sit up straighter. We can’t go down like this, not after what it took to get here. We’ll hike along the ridge as far as we can. It will be a very long way, and very dangerous. But we have to try something. Freezing is no way to go.
I summon just enough air to dampen the wind’s force around us. It batters at the invisible shield mercilessly. I already feel the power slipping, but I should be able to maintain it at least a few minutes. We won’t get blown off the cliff yet.
“We have to move,” I say. “We’ll climb as far as we can. Stay close.”
We begin inching our way up the slope from the boulder, crawling on our hands and knees. We’ve made it ten feet when Emma whispers, “What’s that?”
She points down, toward the Red Tower, where a dark shape has appeared. It’s a flying shape, a dragon, soaring up to us.
40
THE DRAGON, BEHEMOTH, lands on the boulder that had stopped our fall. Its claws are even with my eyes. They’re as long as my forearm and look as sharp as curved swords. Behemoth looks up the slope at the black smoke that still hovers at the border of Black and Red. It coils its neck back and breathes out a blast of fire into the smoke. The intense heat melts
a line of snow and warms the air around us. The black smoke retreats, leaving only blue sky above.
Behemoth lowers its head and studies us with yellow, slitted eyes. “Why are you waiting?” it growls. “Climb on.”
Emma moves first. She reaches up and takes hold of the top of Behemoth’s neck. She pulls herself up, then scrambles to the middle of its back.
“You next,” I say to my Mom.
She climbs on as Emma did. I follow after her. The scales are not as slippery as they look. They’re dry and warm, like stones that have been resting by a fire. There are two rows of little horns running down the dragon’s back. We hold tight to them as Behemoth rises on its perch and turns.
Without a sound, the immense dragon crouches and springs into the air. We begin to dive down the side of the cliff. It takes every ounce of strength to hold on as the wind whips around us. Wings unfurl to the sides and catch the air. Our descent levels and slows. Behemoth begins to circle the Red Tower as it spirals down gradually. For the first time, with my grip secure, the reality of this fantastic moment hits me.
We’re flying. On a dragon.
It came to rescue us from the cliff and from Black. We must have done something right. The view below is mesmerizing. The Scouring looks like a perfect grey circle with a white circle at its center. The towers stand equidistant from each other, and their lands—or waters, for Blue—extend into the distance like five slices of a pie. I want the view to last, to study the terrain, but Behemoth does not seem the type to take requests.
We draw closer and closer to the Red Tower. Behemoth lands smoothly with its claws clutching the parapet that surrounds the signal fire at the top of the tower. It lowers its head until it rests on the stone ground.
We climb off, one by one. Behemoth rises to a crouch on the parapet’s edge. It sits still, like an oversized gargoyle. A flash of flame suddenly blazes beside me, then vanishes.
Rahab stands there, smiling. The fire makes her metallic red dress dance with life. “Welcome back! One hundred forty-six,” she says. “We are most pleased.”
The Red Tower (The Five Towers Book 2) Page 20