Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

We switched to punching with small mitts.

  Soon the hour was over. The client wiped her forehead with a towel and tried not to let her face quiver. I wasn’t familiar with the emotions as a child, but now, reliving the moment as an adult, I could see both relief and worry on her features.

  It must have been embarrassing to be corrected by a bunch of young teenagers like ourselves. It’s probably why she was one of our last trainees of the night. The place had cleared out and no one would pay attention to her.

  I put our practice gear away carefully after wiping the pads down. Tal Forge had been very specific on how things should be done. Failure resulted in more laps, more pushups, more exercise, and less food. Losing food was unacceptable.

  Daniel waited patiently and stretched to cool down from his exercise. Unlike everyone else, the redhead was never coached. He was bounds ahead of even Roy in terms of conditioning.

  And unlike Roy, who did things with a straight face or me who did it just for food, Daniel seemed almost happy. A grin was plastered across his features anytime he worked out. I’d heard going crazy happened to humans occasionally.

  “So I’ve been thinking, man.” Daniel helped himself to the pads I’d just cleaned and put away. He held them out.

  I punched them in turn, as Tal had drilled me to do. Each hit let me release tension. Hitting things felt great. “Uh huh.”

  Daniel shook his hand then raised it for me again. The material flapped lightly and the sensation of it brushing through air made me happy. He said, “About your situation.”

  “Uh huh,” I repeated.

  “And it’s a mess.”

  “Uh huh.” He probably meant how I’d dropped out of nowhere to land in an abandoned train yard. This whole world felt strange and I sucked at research. Reading was hard, and slow. Dry books from the past were even worse. Television shows were much easier but a lot of them repeated themselves.

  “You ever say anything else?” he asked while putting out another pattern for me to hit.

  “Uh huh.” This time I smiled a little while putting more force into punching the pads. Daniel was sturdy. Not like Tal or Roy, but oddly harder than most humans.

  His eyebrows bunched as I connected with left, right, then right again. “You should be careful doing that.”

  “Huh?” I hit the next three.

  “That thing you do. Whatever it is when you’re…” He frowned. His mitt covered hand waved at me. “Here. Hit it again.”

  I did, lightly, while confused.

  “Again.” Daniel frowned. “But harder.”

  I changed to a better stance and put more effort into the swing, twisting my hips and bringing the body in line before swiveling back to a ready position.

  “Not like that, harder. Like you were before.”

  This time I growled and increased the energy of my swing. Parts of my senses tingled and a slight heat crawled up my arm. The same heat resided deep at my core.

  “That. Whatever that is.”

  I paused, frowned, and went for a stronger punch, this time putting more energy into it. Daniel nodded as my fist connected.

  “Yeah. That, I can feel when you do it.” My friend, or as close as I had to one, seemed agitated. I could see it by the way his jaw tensed, and the posture of his arms and shoulders.

  I pushed again and put more into it.

  Daniel shook his head like he was seeing double and trying to shake it off. I’d seen fighters do the same thing in the ring when a blow came too hard, or it rang in uncomfortable ways.

  His arm hung loosely as he cursed. I stared blankly. Tal and Roy did not believe in cursing. They felt resorting to foul language meant a lack of self-control and discipline. Others at the gym were more impulsive and used expletives frequently.

  He raised both mitts, ready. “All right, again. But this time without the extra,” he said.

  I rolled my shoulders and attempted to calm down. Roy and Tal were big on knowing when to be violent. This wasn’t a ring, this was practice.

  We continued fighting. Daniel told me every single time he felt the extra power being pulled. I found it interesting to know someone else could detect what I was doing. Daniel keyed in quicker as the week went on, and I learned what my natural strength was versus empowered.

  It turned out I could still hit hard even without the extra edge.

  I paced the room and counted blocks, toes, and bodies nearby. There were fewer than before. The jail felt less packed. People talked but their volume no longer bore into every ounce of stone in the area.

  My head shook and fingers curled against mostly whole bricks. There were a few grooves from prior tantrums but most of the time they were under vague control.

  I only beat the walls with human strength. Daniel taught me the line between acting like a monster and being human. It did nothing to control my bouts of anger and rage.

  Guards, or Caretakers, or Western Sector Hunter people stood outside the door. There were two and only those two in this entire stretch. They mumbled to each other while I heard—or, more accurately felt—snippets of conversations from across the building.

  Focusing on them meant the past stayed away.

  A woman shook her head. She was bound in chains and sitting at a small table that could barely hold a good meal. She was familiar but felt too thin to be Stacy. Still, the woman moved like a wolf, and felt annoyed. One leg bounced up and down. “I don’t think I’ll make it back. They aren’t going to let me. They’re sending more people to the other side of the island, one a day.”

  “Stacy?” I asked, but neither woman could hear me. They were floors away in another wing of the building.

  Ms. Sauter responded, “Keep your head down. You know the rules here, and I can’t get you moved until the judges agree with Jay’s statement.”

  “What about Thomas? Can he give a statement? He started working with them, right?”

  “He’s…” the other wolf paused.

  “A complete idiot sometimes. But trust me, he loves you,” Julianne said to Kahina.

  The sudden disconnect make my heartbeat stutter. I’d forgotten what she sounded like. A mixture of gruff and playful that vibrated when she spoke. The air shook around her from an intensity normal people didn’t have.

  But Julianne was dead and the memory was from almost seven years ago. Why had I thought of her?

  Because of Stacy. My memories were still a mess. In a split second I was kneeling in the woods, cradling Julianne’s dying form. Julianne held up a hand, pleading with me.

  “Take care of my girl,” she said to me.

  My head dipped in agreement. I wanted to go back in time to change what happened. If it were possible to alter the past.

  But time didn’t march backward. I’d cast Kahina aside a second time to keep her alive. That decision would haunt me for the rest of my life. It could compete with all my other terrible decisions; disguising my nature, or not remembering enough to keep Julianne alive, or even letting the fucking Order of Merlin into pack woods.

  Julianne died, was dying, and died again as my mind relived the moment. I screamed and banged on the wall with a fist as I crumpled to my knees. She would have made a hell of a wolf. She would never get the chance. Her death was my fault in a dozen different ways.

  I cursed Muni for agreeing to suppress my memories. That thought vibrated until her words echoed again. Her form, a hopping raven, alighted onto Julianne’s dying body. Memories blurred.

  “My charms cannot hold back the hurricane of your mind forever,” the raven said. It hopped and avoided my imaginary arm backhanding it. “When the trinket comes off, there will be hell to pay.”

  “Fuck off, Muni,” I yelled. “Go away, or I’ll burn you to a cinder!”

  The memory of Muni chirped then fluttered away. Black feathers spun all around, taking the past away for a moment.

  I sniffed and let myself be swept to another part of the jail. I was responsible for other people, and Roy’s son couldn’t be
allowed face the same fate as Julianne.

  “Sir, Mr. Fields is still in solitary,” Leo said. His body stiff and eyes locked on the man.

  Last Chief shifts slightly. Controlling agitation. Will shift back in seconds. Bitter Whelp’s heart beats strongly. Toes curl. Hands flatten upon tabletop.

  Roy carefully measured every single movement. His son, which my inner mind thought of as “Bitter Whelp” couldn’t keep his nervousness from expressing itself.

  “Do we know how long?”

  “No. He should be on strike three and pushed to the forest, but the Wardens haven’t done it yet.”

  “Why?”

  Leo shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Jay would survive the other side. It wouldn’t matter what they send against him.”

  “I don’t know. There’s rumors of a dark monster in the woods. Something that isn’t one of the major races.” Leo’s head turned side to side in a motion that might be to scan the room for eavesdroppers. “Like us.”

  Roy moved slightly and resumed holding still. “Have you made progress figuring out what they might be?” He ran a tongue across his teeth and flared his nostrils.

  Roy’s unease worried me.

  “No, but there is something wrong with this place. Earthquakes every other night, small ones, but consistent. There are fewer people than ever. The caretakers are finding any excuse to send people to the other side.”

  “There’s been no news about it,” Roy responded. His cheek twitched ahead of schedule. “Not even the tremors.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry about how. The people we’re against could easily stifle news reports. What we need to focus on is the truth behind their enforced silence.”

  Leo nodded but his eyebrows were tight. He felt confused. Roy shook his head and stared toward the small room’s rear door. There were other footsteps passing by as guards checked in on the father and son.

  “They wouldn’t prevent the news if there wasn’t something to hide. We were right to suspect this place as housing a potential family member.”

  “I don’t know,” Leo stammered.

  “It doesn’t matter. Jay’s abandoned the trinket. Soon he’ll be in control of his powers. He will find the unknown here. He will decide if he returns home with us, or is culled for the safety of us all.”

  Leo bit his lip and clasped his hands tightly. He nodded. I felt his head stutter. Roy’s body lifted with a deep breath before he nodded in return.

  Roy led into a speech. “If you complete this trial—”

  Leo quickly nodded again then cut off his father, “I know. I failed you in front of the tribe members and this is my punishment.”

  Roy’s face hardened but he lifted an arm and banged the table. It dented sharply around his hand. Two guards rushed down the hallway toward their room. Leo flinched.

  It was too many motions for me to absorb at once with my tenuous grasp on the now. I fell backward onto the ruined leftovers of my cot. Being vertical reminded me of another time, almost two decades ago.

  11

  Only The Gods

  Daniel and I lay on our backs atop Tal’s gym. I didn’t know how much of the property Tal owned, but he had access to the roof. Up here the air felt quieter and less annoying. The uncoordinated pattering of the people below faded between layers of material.

  There were a few buildings nearby that were even taller, and those annoyed me. I wondered how easy it would be to tear them down like the television shows sometimes displayed. I’d watched a show that spent an hour explaining how forces piled against each other to support high rises.

  Daniel rambled about his latest topic. “So, man, I found these words in Latin, right? They talk about a concept only the Gods understand. You know, Gods?”

  I nodded. Daniel had been going away for weeks at a time for his training. Each time he returned the young man had new theories and ideas on my nature and the mystery of my missing person.

  “Yeah. Don’t tell anyone about them or I’ll get in trouble. But Dad says most are dead. The, uh, my teachers, man they get all touchy whenever someone mentions them by name.”

  Daniel rambled a lot of the time. I let it pass over me and stared up. Thick clouds to the west were laden with water.

  “Ab Inito.”

  “Abs are neato,” I mumbled. A scent of roasting meat was hanging in the wind. I could feel the heavy spices adding a slight change in texture that even a dog might not smell.

  “No man, ab inito. It’s used in legal contracts, or old horror stories. It means, from the beginning.”

  I grunted. He’d have to start over from the beginning for anything to make sense.

  Daniel shook his head. I felt skin and hair crinkle as he moved against the roof’s hot tiles. “Remember how you described things when you first came to? The night when I saw you landing in the train yard?”

  I’d spent most of the last few years blocking those memories. When they crossed my mind I became angry and sad at the same time. Almost a decade later and I still felt upset over my failure, but angry at the powerlessness of being a small child.

  My hands were much stronger now. I could hold onto her, whomever I’d been traveling with, and never let go. The gods themselves would have to strike me down in order to tear her away. Only, I still remembered nothing but the vague sensation of there being someone.

  I said nothing, uncomfortable, but listened to Daniel anyway. He’d always been a thinker. I could talk to him about the utter nonsense of my life and he’d simply accept it.

  “From the beginning. I think the chime was the first noise of time catching up with you. Like you were existing in a place that was being remade from the beginning.”

  “Huh?”

  “Elves have these legends called The Sins of The People. A story they share with their Speakers.”

  I nodded as if it made sense. Speakers were elves who could cast illusions to fool the eyes. I rarely used my actual eyesight so the idea sounded worthless.

  “Anyway, in their story, they say the world has been restarted a bunch of times. Like, we’ve existed seven times, or something. But at the end, or start, they talk about how they sacrifice this creature called a Lord and alter history.”

  The confused look on my face felt over the top. Slight drool dripped from the scent of delicious food. One eyebrow seemed stuck up high. I wanted to leap off the roof and hunt the person grilling meat.

  “So, I think you were displaced when one reality left and the other came rushing in. Like, you existed.”

  “Huh?”

  “A lord got offed, and you kept existing while the world rebuilt as you were somehow able to traverse between the timelines. That happened once, according to Dad. But only, like, Gods can do it, if they still exist. Which is wicked awesome man, you’re like a boy god.”

  That didn’t help my understanding at all.

  “Huh?” I asked my question again, hoping for clarity.

  “I dunno, man, it’s all like, quantum physicals and theoretical. Time travel’s untested, but elves say they’ve done it! What if that’s what happened to you? You were somewhere eating cereal or something, then elves did their thing, and it ripped you out of the old reality? Then you just survived until the new one formed around you. That nothing, that absence, it was because reality didn’t exist.”

  My head shook. The ideas he spoke of weren’t clicking upstairs. Logic had never been my skill but I wanted to be half as smart as Daniel someday. I simply needed to focus on this instead of the annoying movements of a beginner class downstairs.

  “That thing with the dirt turning into clay and a brick or building, that was time passing by! The ghost people were people traveling! It makes perfect sense.”

  “But why only me?”

  “I dunno, man.” Daniel deflated and looked glum. I’d explained it to him, the feeling of missing someone else. The person I’d been traveling next to.

  “Well t
hat doesn’t help,” I said, finally invested in the conversation.

  “No man, every little bit helps. Do you know what that means, if you can travel between timelines? Do you have any clue?”

  “Not a single one.” Of course I didn’t have a clue. I was a teenager whose world revolved around working out and punching people.

  Daniel started to speak but his words died off. I struggled to understand all the different ways this would matter. Maybe I’d left the other person behind in another timeline. I wondered if there were seven of these things existing next to each other, like buses sometimes traveled in packs. The person I’d been missing might be on another bus.

  What on earth had made me consider different realities to be equal to city buses? The concept was absolute nonsense. As if I could simply get off the bus, walk to the next stop, and get onto a new one.

  At that age, I’d only ridden a bus a few times. Now, I could navigate almost any city in the Western Sector, and knew enough to realize no bus went to other realities.

  My mind warred with being a teenager versus being in my thirties. Time had passed, I was no longer a child. The disconnected thought pushed me out of the past again.

  I woke, staring at the ceiling, and felt doubled over with hunger. The scents of the past rooftop haunted the present. I plugged my nose and slowly relocated my senses to a more current timeline.

  The walls rumbled briefly. My stomach answered in kind. Hunger brought up a dozen different moments in the past. Tal cooking and frowning as I asked for a third helping. The memory shifted forward to years later.

  It was the same cramped kitchen with a small alcove for the table. Rachel moved around. She was a short stern lady who believed in chastising misbehaving children with kitchen utensils. She bustled, pushing Tal out of the way. He smiled when the shorter woman wasn’t looking.

  Roy came in through a back door, bruises on his skin and a black mark on one eye. He turned slightly and dashed to his room.

  “What happened?” Tal asked as he followed Roy up the stairs. I followed them long enough to determine neither person was headed to my small den.