by Azalea Ellis
I clamped a clawed hand around the Estreyan’s wrist, where it was pressed against the wall and trapping Jacky in the corner. My heart pounded, and my lips twitched with the urge to bare my teeth at him.
His head jerked around to face me, and after a few silent seconds where I didn’t move, he flushed. “Do you need something?” He jerked his arm away, and I let him, since it also freed Jacky.
She moved to stand beside me, glaring at him directly now. “I told you to leave me alone. If you’re gonna try and start something, I’m gonna finish it.”
The man looked around at the increasingly large audience we were drawing and flushed even darker. “Do not pretend I am some scoundrel. We were merely speaking, and you found my attentions pleasant. You encourage me in private, and condemn me before the eyes of others? These are the actions of a—”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off, as Sam tiptoed, reached up, and clamped onto the back of the man’s neck from behind, not so dissimilar to the way I’d killed the female guard earlier that morning. This time, the man merely choked as his eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed into Sam’s arms, almost knocking him over with the impact, and was carefully lowered to the ground.
“I coulda handled him,” Jacky said.
Sam nodded at her. “I know. But you shouldn’t have to. He made an enemy of all of us as soon as he decided to act as less than a perfect gentleman toward you. I just decided I was too angry not to solve this particular problem myself.” He stood, and looked around at the gathered crowd, raising his voice but losing some of his projected confidence. “Er, Torliam, as the current captain of the ship, has ordered a return to the secure seats. We’ll be engaging in some maneuvers that may cause severe turbulence and, um, loss of gravity.”
The ship’s staff groaned and scurried around picking up loose trays, food, and any of the other items that weren’t already attached firmly to the floor.
Sam heaved the unconscious Estreyan onto his back, then, straining a little under the weight, carried him away. “We’ve got about five minutes. I’ll strap him down in the brig and be back soon,” he puffed out, cheeks flushed from exertion.
I helped herd the passengers back to the safety seats, then escaped to the control room, where most of the team was already strapped in. Torliam was navigating the flight console with intense concentration. In front and slightly below the ship stood two huge trees, so tall they towered over everything in sight, so old they’d turned to stone.
I moved to strap myself in beside him, but an insistent grunting made me turn my head.
Chanelle jerked in her seat, her face twisted into a rictus scowl. She clawed at the straps holding her down, nails catching the skin around them and drawing blood.
I lunged toward her, grabbing her hands to stop her from doing any more damage to herself. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?” I sent a Window to Sam, even as I examined her myself.
—Something’s wrong with Chanelle. Hurry here as quick as you can.—
-Eve-
She looked up at me, with none of the vacancy her gaze sometimes held. “Let me go, you bitch! You can’t control me. I’ll rip your throat out!”
I jerked back from her, more out of surprise than fear. “What—” I snapped my head around and extended Wraith, searching for Reglium.
Adam tossed up shields around us without my even needing to say the word.
“Agh!” Torliam said, moving frantically to pull up the view from the forward window, which had just been blocked off with ink, onto a screen in front of him.
Chanelle started laughing as she finally managed to unfasten her safety straps.
Wraith found no sign of Reglium, or of his Skill reaching out to Chanelle, and there was no line of sight to anyone outside the room.
“She’s not being controlled,” I said with a sinking heart.
Chapter 5
That which we had we still possess,
Though leaves may drop and stars may fall.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Sam burst into the room and Adam opened up a space in the shield for the other boy to get through to us.
“I hate you!” Chanelle screamed, the sound echoing off the ink around us and ripping through her throat hard enough to make her start coughing uncontrollably.
Sam reached out to her, holding her arms to her sides as she continued to cough and fight against him. The self-imposed scratches on her skin transferred to Sam and quickly healed, and he coughed a bit as he healed her throat.
“I do not believe this is mere emotional reaction,” Torliam said, confirming my fears. “I do not know her character as well as you might, but her words seemed deliberately hurtful and destructive. It is a hallmark of the advancing Sickness that one’s mental and emotional connections to that which was once important to them are destroyed and twisted. The Sickness made my sister tell me that she had never loved me, well before it made her try to eat my flesh to sustain her own life.”
“And that is what you believe is happening to Chanelle?” Blaine said, seemingly undisturbed.
“It is common. The Sickness is an agent of destruction. Not only physically. Once the will of the host is gone, the mind lingers without the self.”
I turned toward him, “What do we do?”
Torliam shook his head. “There is nothing we can do. This will pass, with time, and come again more frequently as she succumbs to its sway.”
Adam let the ink shield drop, and flopped his head back against his seat. “Wonderful.”
Gregor and Kris both stared at her, and though they didn’t say anything, I could see the fear on their faces. How long, till they too lost themselves like this?
I suppressed a shudder. “Put her to sleep,” I said, watching Chanelle’s muscles strain against Sam’s grip as she cursed at him.
Someone else walked through the door to the control room. My claws slipped out and I took an aggressive step forward before I realized who it was.
The former captain’s eyes roamed across us and then out over the viewing window. “What is going on here? I cannot in good conscience allow you to place the wellbeing of my passengers in continued danger. It is imperative they arrive at their destinations on time, unharmed, and unharried.” He straightened his back, moving his glare between Torliam and me.
Sam moved the now-limp Chanelle into her chair and strapped her back in.
The captain frowned as he watched, but his eyes were quickly drawn to the front viewing window and the two fossilized trees we traveled ever-closer to.
“If you do not wish to be thrown about, I recommend you take a seat,” Torliam said, tilting the huge, fat beast of a ship forward and down.
The captain’s eyes widened as the angle of descent kept increasing, and he and I both scrambled forward to strap ourselves in.
Torliam sent us all the way into a screeching dive, aimed right between the trees. “Hold on,” he warned.
I clamped my hands around the seat of my chair as my stomach tried to float up out of my mouth.
Kris let out a muffled shriek around clenched teeth, and Gregor slipped into his Shadow state, while Sam cursed repeatedly under his breath and kept his eyes squeezed shut.
Jacky laughed the whole way down, whooping as if she were on an amusement park ride, till Adam snapped at her to shut up.
A cacophony of screams resounded from the safe seating area where the passengers were secured.
From morning brightness, the ship passed between the two trunks, and came out on the other side into twilight.
Torliam leveled out the ship’s flight, and as my eyes adjusted to the sudden change, I saw we flew even higher above the ground than we had been, despite just diving what had to be thousands of meters. The ground was flat instead of hilly, and grew a sea of what looked like dark blue grass.
I stretched out my awareness, but we were moving so fast they were already beyond my reach.
As if reading my mind, Adam pulled up the view from the re
ar of the ship on one of the screens near him. The screen showed only more of the twilight and waving grass, not the stone trees I’d been expecting. I saw no sign of whatever portal we’d just passed through.
Blaine put his glasses back on his face and squinted through them. “Did we just pass through an array?”
Torliam snorted. “No. We merely traveled to another layer of my world.”
“Traveled to another layer… In the same way that foggy, airborne current carried us from the main layer to Testimony and Lore’s domain? How many layers—” Blaine’s eyes widened and he seemed to lose his train of thought as Torliam angled the ship upward again, and more of the sky became visible.
No sun hung in the sky. A faint glow seemed to rise out of the earth itself, creating the illusion of twilight. Above, we looked into space, so clear and seemingly empty of atmosphere that the stars shone like flickering fires in the sky. They made so many points of light, I felt sure I was seeing all the way to the edge of the galaxy. The stars shimmered with every color I could imagine, and some that I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before. I could barely breathe past the wonder.
The usurped captain’s voice broke my fugue, grating against my ears as it rose into a pseudo-screech. “Is this the level which holds the Spire of Prophecy? Access to the Spire is forbidden! It is my duty to shepherd the passengers of this ship safely! I cannot allow you to place them in danger.” He leaned forward from his seat next to Torliam and tapped frantically at the console.
Torliam lashed out with a hand, slamming his fist into the other man’s jaw.
The captain slumped over, unconscious.
Sam sighed. “Should I move him to the brig, too?”
I nodded, then leaned back and kept looking at the stars.
When he finally spoke, Torliam’s voice was hoarse. “We have arrived. In the interest of caution, I will land the ship before we fly too close to the Spire. We may approach slowly on foot, the better to avoid causing a disturbance.”
Blaine nodded. “Perhaps it is time for Eve to make another speech, to mitigate any more issues from the other passengers as they become aware of our location and mission.”
In the far distance, the grassy plains ended, turning into stony ground interspersed with chunky rocks that seemed to be growing up from the earth. Beyond that, the rocks grew bigger, turning into boulders, and then into a large hill. Or maybe a small mountain, depending on how far away it actually was.
A tower speared through the mountain, so tall it looked like it actually pierced the sky. The only clouds in sight obscured its top, roiling around it like multicolored marshmallow fluff. The whole thing glowed bright enough to obscure the light of the stars above and around it.
Torliam set down the huge ship on the edge of the grassy plain, where the blue vegetation began to give way to stone.
Following Blaine’s suggestion, and a few tips from Torliam, I did give a speech of sorts to the passengers and reporters, though they weren’t allowed to record any of it. I explained where we were, what we were doing, and assured them that they were safe, with Blaine staying behind to pilot the ship if necessary. I assured them we would not bring them any closer to the distant Spire and the danger it presented to those who were not the subject of prophecy. I was beginning to regret the decision to surround the team with watchful eyes. I could tell, when they looked at me, they saw something else, some idea of a person they’d made up, like a character in a storybook. The expectations and the weight of their attention was wearying.
As the team prepared, Blaine grumbled about the necessity of staying behind with Chanelle, despite Torliam’s assurances that the Spire wasn’t dangerous to any who were truly the subject of prophecy. With the Seal of Nine from Testimony and Lore, there was no doubt of the kiddos inclusion in that small number.
Gregor finally rolled his eyes at his uncle. “You’re not being rational. We’re part of Eve’s new quest, so we have to go. The Oracle wouldn’t have mentioned us if we weren’t supposed to enter. Also, even if something were to happen, it’s not like we’re helpless.” He slipped into his Shadow state and brandished his long daggers, then resumed corporeality. “Remember?”
Blaine conceded with moderate grace. “Even so, I will be on standby to pilot the ship in emergency takeoff, if necessary. Send me a virtual message immediately if anything goes wrong.”
Kris’ marionette crouched down so she could climb up and ride atop its metal shoulders, while Torliam opened one of the smaller doors in the ship’s hull. I thought I was prepared, but the cold hit me like a blow.
I hunched my shoulders and stepped out of the ship. There was no ice or snow, and though it grew blue, the grass looked lush and healthy, so I hadn’t been expecting the frigid temperature.
We walked for a long while. The closer we approached the glowing spire, the more massive and imposing it appeared. We stopped at the first big boulder we reached, the silent tension surging as we each read the message carved into its surface.
BEWARE, MORTALS DRAWN IN IGNORANCE. DEATH COMES TO THOSE UNNAMED IN PROPHECY.
We shared grim looks with each other, but continued on past several variations of the same warning message carved into the ever-larger stones around us. Though still far away, I could feel the power of the towering edifice licking across my skin like a warm wind.
When we passed the first skeleton, a four-legged creature that had seemingly curled up and never stood again, we skirted it silently.
After that, there were more.
I let my claws slip out and my vision sharpen as we grew nearer. “Something…is flying around the tower.”
Adam squinted. “That glowy stuff?”
“Yeah.” I strained to see more clearly. The glow coming off the tower wasn’t just amorphous light as I had thought. A host of gigantic, tadpole shaped forms teemed around the tower and the strange clouds. My eyes had trouble distinguishing what they were, and when I focused too hard on trying to decipher what exactly I was seeing, a spike of pain shot through my head. It looked like they were made of refracted light, all the colors of the stars weaving through their ever-changing fractal bodies. They wound through the tower and around it, swimming through the air so close to each other it was almost impossible to distinguish one form from another. I looked to Torliam. “Do you see them?”
“I see them.”
“See what?” Sam asked, his voice a little too loud as he swiveled his head to see in all directions.
“They are the guardians of the Spire,” Torliam said. “Your weak eyes should be able to perceive them once we draw closer.”
I was so focused on the guardians that I almost stumbled over another set of bones. This one was humanoid, and huge. An Estreyan.
I shared a grim look with Adam. Jacky caught my eye and nodded, letting me know she’d seen and understood the need for us to be on the lookout against danger.
The remnants of death grew more frequent as we neared the base of the mountain. The guardians swooped over and around us with nerve-wracking speed as we climbed, their glowing forms forcing me to close my eyes at times. One swam straight through my body, almost knocking me off my feet. I felt it in my brain as it passed through me, bursting into jagged-edged pain, as if each fractal edge was slicing me from the inside. Constantly shifting, searching my mind, it found my memories of the Oracle, of Testimony and Lore, and funneled itself through that space. It came out the other side smooth and coherent. I turned to the others, but they were unharmed, if now sporting headaches similar to my own.
Jacky glared at the receding guardians, Kris whimpered and hunched in on herself, and Zed looked like he was about to throw up.
When we reached the doorway at the bottom of the tower, the guardians swooping around us flew off to mingle with the others, plunging through the Spire and the clouds like cotton-candy ghosts.
“We must go up,” Torliam said.
I turned my head for a glimpse of the ship waiting far behind us, beyond the stones. “Time to
find the lost god.” I stepped through the doorway.
A winding staircase stretched upward, lit only by the occasional open window cut into the stone of the outer wall. I was wary at first, but grew calmer as we climbed. The higher we went, the more often I found myself losing track of time, or how many steps I’d taken through the darkness since passing the last stone window. When I found myself walking past a single, small window for what felt like several minutes, I turned to ask Torliam if this was normal, and found myself alone.
My stomach clenched, but when I looked again I saw the others, except they faded in and out of my sight as they moved.
Jacky walked past me and I held out a hand toward her. “Wow,” she said, even as she brushed against me and I barely felt her, like she was half ghost. “Can you see me?” her voice sounded like it was coming from a faraway place.
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded and walked past me, continuing up the staircase. I exhaled slowly. They were okay. Whatever this was, my teammates were all still there. I turned and continued walking with them, making sure that none of them disappeared for good, even if I couldn’t always see them.
Finally, the stairs opened onto a large cylindrical room. The stone here was cut open to the outside at seemingly random intervals and the light didn’t travel right. There were patches of brightness and alternating darkness in the wrong spots—some too bright, others too dark. I had trouble focusing on exactly what was incorrect about the physics, especially as I watched the ghostly forms of my teammates wander around, fading in and out of reality.
I stepped into the room, and, as if they’d been hanging in the air, invisible to me simply because I wasn’t the right angle to see them, lines of light scattered through the room like lasers through dust, rainbow bright.
QUEST COMPLETED!