The Tower

by Jean Johnson

  “I’m not leaving you as a . . . a stone statue in one of these rooms,” Myal argued, slashing her hand between them. “That would be wrong, and dangerous, and you’re the only person who knows which path to take!”

  Her voice echoed off the chasm walls. Kerric caught her hand between his, hushing her. “Shhh. It’s alright. As soon as all the companions of the victim have passed through to the next room or corridor or whatever, the petrified person comes back to life and is free to leave the room and join them.”

  “. . . Hello?” The voice startled both of them, echoing up through the chasm. The reflections of it off all the hard surfaces made the gender indeterminate, either a tenor man or an alto woman. “Is someone out there?”

  Rolling his eyes, Kerric drew in a deep breath and hollered back, speaking slowly and as clearly as possible to ensure his words would be understood despite the way they bounced off the peaks and ravines. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like they were somewhere near the rift in the outer wall, which meant they were very close to dying if they went the wrong way. “Yes! This is Tower Maintenance. Please remain in a safe location. The traps are particularly deadly in this sector! Do not try to climb outside! Remain calm. We should have the Tower fixed within a day or so. Please remain in a safe location!”

  His bellow echoed off the irregular stretches of rock and smooth-hewn stone, reflecting from balconies and projections alike. It took a few moments, but he got a reply.

  “. . . Okay! We’ll stay right here!”

  Dropping his voice to a much quieter level, Kerric lifted her fingers to his lips. “At least most adventurers are sensible about maintenance problems.” He kissed the back of her hand, then turned it over and kissed the palm. “There. Your kiss for getting the riddle right.”

  Disappointment made her mouth turn down at the corners. “That’s not much of a kiss.”

  Amused, he smiled at her. “Are you pouting? Is the great Myal the Mendhite, Myal the Magnificent, veteran of a hundred and more gauntlet runs, actually pouting?”

  Flustered, she started to deny the very thought, then blushed and tugged at her hand, still caught in his grasp. He didn’t let go. She sulked a little more, and finally admitted it. “Yes. I am.”

  Grinning, Kerric kissed his way up her inner wrist, covering her skin from bracer to inner elbow. He lingered at that last spot, teasing her flesh with the tip of his tongue. As he thought she might, she squirmed at the ticklish touch, grinning. “There you go,” he murmured, releasing her. It was the other arm from the last one. “Count that as a bookmark. I’ll get to reading the rest of your body soon enough. And don’t worry about the next room. It’s nothing more than an elaborate stasis charm.”

  “Kerric?” Myal asked quietly as he started across the bridge, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn’t echo or travel far. He glanced back at her, but didn’t stop; her tone hadn’t implied the need for that. “What do you mean, reading the rest of my body? Yes, I’m covered in tattoos, but you couldn’t read them like a fellow Painted Warrior could.”

  “Ah, but there is a way to read that involves touch. It’s what the blind do, or did, before the Empire collapsed,” he told her, leading the way across the chasm. “Not every kingdom retains the old ways, but the Tower has a massive library, Topside, and they had ways back then of imprinting heavy paper with a special kind of raised-letter writing.”

  Myal thought of the cast bronze lettering on the plaques, the way they stood out, literally, from the surface. “Yes, but I don’t have letters cast into my skin.”

  “True, but you do have goose-bumps,” he said. “Especially when I tickle you.”

  The absurdity of that, coupled with his comment about raised-letter writing, made her smile. Kerric Vo Mos, just plain Kerric, was turning out to be far more amusing than she’d thought. Until now, Myal had only ever dealt with Master Kerric, the Guardian of the Tower. This, however, was a glimpse into the man behind the job.

  Reaching the far balcony, he went straight to the door and tried the knob. It opened easily. Holding it for her, he entered behind Myal, stealing a quick peek at her armor-skirted rump. And bumped into it as she stopped moving not more than a body-length into the plain, small, stone-walled room. Mid-stride, too, with her hair and skirt frozen while swaying. Her lungs didn’t move, her eyes didn’t blink. She was as frozen as a perfectly preserved, skillfully painted statue, save that a real statue would have toppled over mid-stride, or needed some sort of subtle extra means for support in that particular position.

  Well, better her than him. He knew the trap was temporary. Giving her upper back a gentle pat—to have patted her rump without her knowledge would have been wrong—Kerric moved around her and tried the far door. It was unlocked, thankfully. Opening it, he stepped through and shut the door behind him.

  Kerric took the moment of privacy to scratch an indelicate itch under his leather and brass armor, then leaned against the wall. Waiting for the trap to reset, he unlocked the door from his side without opening it, then reviewed the next few steps after Greed Hurts. Before he’d thought through more than twelve rooms ahead, the door opened and Myal poked her head through.

  “Ah. It was me that was petrified, wasn’t it?” she asked. He nodded, and she shrugged philosophically. “A relatively harmless trap, compared to the Rushlight one. Still have your towel?”

  “Yes, as do you. And they can’t all be deadly,” Kerric offered lightly. “That one is designed to delay a group, because if you come in with someone you cannot leave behind—say, someone skilled at healing, or picking locks, or whatever—then you’re going to waste time trying to unfreeze them before you realize you’re being forced to abandon them. And by that point, the Guardian has had ample time to marshal more forces into place, in a real invasion.”

  Thinking about that, Myal offered another solution. “Or the Guardian could use it to figure out if the frozen person is the most important member of the group by how the others act, and then they can work to neutralize that person. If not, they can neutralize one of the others and see how they react to that.”

  He grinned at her. “Well done! I could definitely use someone as smart as you on the inside. Let me know when you’re ready to retire from the adventuring side of things.”

  Pleased by the praise, she shrugged. “I’m not quite ready to retire, but I’ll think about it. Now . . . the Scales.”

  “Yes, the Scales. And we’re obviously not the same weight,” Kerric pointed out. “I may be stout for my height, but you’re both tall and strong. Your side will dip down fast, while mine will rise. I don’t dare levitate until you’re off of yours, either, or you won’t be able to make the leap to the platform. Which, of course, will have gargoyles on it. Statues that will animate and attempt to attack us, flinging us off to the floor far below.”

  She nodded. “With the poles greased, and without other teammates to try to even out the load . . . Well, I’ll try to come out of the chute in a controlled tumble, and see if I can aim for the platform. Unless you think we should climb down the chute? Maybe use a rope if there’s a place to tie it? Or have you levitate us both?”

  Kerric shook his head. “If the Tower weren’t in shutdown mode, maybe that would work. But it is, so these chutes will be spell-greased, and the trapdoors at the bottom won’t open unless we hit them at the right speed. The one thing in our favor is that both platforms will have a great deal of mass to them, in the expectation of three or more adventurers coming along. They should move a little more slowly than we’ve seen in past gauntlet scryings, even if we are two different weights.”

  “They should, but I will not count on that,” Myal cautioned him. “Neither should you.”

  “True. Well. We’ll both see how good our reflexes are, won’t we?” he asked rhetorically. “Ready for the drop?”

  “No, but that won’t stop me,” Myal retorted. “I hate falling. I hate it more, knowing I cannot stop it from happening. Let’s go.”

  “Right
, then. Here goes. Stay close. The weight of at least two people will trigger the floor trap,” Kerric stated. “After that, we know what to do.”

  Gesturing her to join him, he headed up the corridor. They passed two doors, it turned left, they passed a third—and the entire floor dropped out from under them. Both yelped, even though they each knew it was coming. Kerric reflexively levitated within a body-length, then forced himself to cancel the spell, sliding and tumbling after Myal. Armor and backpacks scraping, they twisted and slid, until a loud snap made her dart off to the left and him to the right as a leverlike section flipped over the moment she skidded past.

  If he hadn’t been aware of the very lethal trap awaiting them, Kerric might have enjoyed this chute. As it was, the moment he dropped a second time, he tensed, hit the metal grate with a loud grunt, and twisted to get himself upright and oriented even as the platform started to rise under him. Just as he did so, he watched Myal uncurl from her own tumbled landing, and launch herself like a cat springing for a bookshelf. For a moment, his side of the Scales jolted upward from the force of her leap, then the grate reversed course, sliding quickly downward.

  Overhead was a mess of spikes, designed to slot into the holes in the grate supporting him. Down below lay the same, yet more spikes designed to impale the unwary. Fingers snapping, Kerric floated up off the sinking platform. At the same moment, Myal hit the edge of the platform at waist height. One of her hands hooked around the talonlike paw of one of the half-dozen winged beasts perched there. Just as it looked like she was going to haul on it to pull herself up, it shifted, shook off her fingers, and made her slip.

  Breath catching, Kerric willed his body to soar in her direction, using his mind to push the energies holding him aloft. The platform in question was a good twelve feet or more from the Scales and the vertical, cagelike bars the Scales used as guides as they slid up and down. It was also at least fifty feet above the spike-covered floor. Somehow, Myal managed to bunch up her legs and touch her toes to the platform—and let go with her hand just as the gargoyle stretched its wings, twisted, and snapped downward, no doubt intending to bite open her skull. Its granite beak clacked shut on empty air.

  Myal swung free, saved by the feet now clinging to the underside of the solid stone shelf. Braid dangling over her head, she drew her sword and braced herself. The gargoyle curled over the edge and slashed with a talon. Dodging, she grabbed the hilt in both hands and jabbed downward—upward in relation to gravity.

  Blade-tip stabbing under one of its feet, between it and the platform, she wrenched and heaved. Caught off-balance, the gargoyle tipped over, knocked into the second statue—which woke it up—and twisted, trying to get free. So did Myal, twisting the steel blade like a broad prybar so that it tipped the gargoyle forward, off the platform. It snapped its wings open, no doubt intending to fly, perhaps even come around to snap at her again, though she quickly relaxed, dangling upside-down out of its way.

  Instead, Kerric got in its way. Not physically; he was no fighter, and had backed off from the platform the moment he knew she was anchored to its underside. Instead, he shouted a word. The stone beast rehardened mid-glide, and clanged into the bars, before dropping straight to the ground four or so floors below. It shattered with a loud, echoing crunch. He snapped his attention to the second gargoyle, which was nudging its fellows awake with thunking slaps of its hand. They weren’t overly large, about the size of a child of four or five, but between their tough hides and their sharp beaks and claws, the six-limbed monsters were dangerous.

  Panting, blood rushing to her head, Myal considered their options. “Can you freeze the rest?”

  “Only for a few seconds,” Kerric said. He dodged as the second launched itself, and snapped the same word. “Dolomus!”

  Wings caught in an upbeat, it dropped more or less like the rock it was, and smashed on the spikes at the bottom of the bar-lined cage where his platform slid.

  “They have the power of the Fountain to break through any compulsion, and I—dolomus!” he snapped as a third launched itself at him, croaking like stone grinding on stone. It fell, but not completely. “Dammit!” he swore as the beast recovered mere feet from the spikes and the rubble of its companion. “They’re getting faster on blocking it. I’ll have to think of another spell.”

  “Think faster! Dodge that one, and try to distract the others while you’re doing it,” she ordered, sheathing her blade. She curled her body so that her hands brushed the wall behind the platform. Another twist brought her dropping down—and now she was a target for the one laboriously flapping its way higher, sort of hovering its way up with gray stone wingstrokes.

  The thing about these massively complex illusions, a lesson which experienced adventurers learned, was that they were all based on simple rules. Many rules, but rules all the same. Without magic, stone the size of these gargoyles was far too heavy to fly. With magic, it could have simply levitated and just hurtled straight at them, smashing them against the walls . . . but while the Tower’s Guardians wanted to guard the singularity empowering the place, they had to give people a chance to get into the heart of the Tower.

  More than that, simple blocks that flung themselves in straight lines were boring. They were not entertaining. So, these gargoyle statues had wings and claws and beaks. They might have arms as well as legs, but they were enchanted to “fly” to get where they wanted to go, and they were enchanted to have “reflexes” so they could dodge adventurers. But those reflexes would only be so fast.

  Tensing certain tattoos, Myal scrambled up the wall on sticky hands and boot-covered feet, shuffled over, and bull-kicked the nearest gargoyle just as it turned to attack her, using both of her feet. She almost clipped one of the others, but that wasn’t her intent. With that strong a double-kick, the stone monster flung across the way and smashed into the far wall, wings and one limb breaking. Landing with her feet on the top of the platform, she released her hands, spun, and ducked under the slashing claws of the next stone beast, the fifth one.

  Arm hooking around one of its legs, she flexed her left bicep, activating great strength all across her body. It had a second in which to squawk as she whipped it off its feet, continuing her spin, and then she flung it like a disc in a tossing game from back home at the third one, which had recovered from Kerric’s spell. They cracked into each other, literally chipping off chunks from the thinner parts, talons, wings, a wrist, but they didn’t fall; her aim had been slightly off.

  Still, they did lose altitude, and that gave the two adventurers a break. Kicking sideways to shove the sixth and final gargoyle off the platform, she shouted, “Kerric! To me!”

  He responded as fast as any of her previous adventuring teammates, zooming in straight for the door, tools in hand. Taking up position at his back to guard him while he worked, Myal pulled a trio of chain-connected sticks from the holder on her pack. The flail-like weapon came not from Mendhi, but from a kingdom that bordered her homeland. She had learned to use the farm-implement version for threshing grain, and had learned to use the weapon version on board one of the first ships she had worked.

  The gargoyles learned quickly that a section of ironwood staff, swung with great force and speed, could indeed chip off more chunks of stone as she bashed them back from the pair, keeping them from landing any blows.

  “Done!” Kerric gasped, pushing open the door and darting through. She smacked another of the trio and backed up—just as three more gargoyles materialized on the platform, and the sounds of approaching, yelling voices warned her that someone else had sprung the Scales of Justice trap.

  SEVEN

  As soon as he slammed the door shut, she looked at him. “Did you hear that? Did you hear them coming?”

  Kerric nodded, grimacing. “Dammit—I don’t know if they’re just opportunists, or if they’re deliberately following us. I suspect deliberately. There have been too many alternate choices they could have made. As much as I don’t wish anybody who enters the Tower permanen
t harm, I’m very glad the Scales are so deadly and time-consuming to defeat.”

  “They’re tracking us somehow,” Myal pointed out. She turned to face the rest of the room, mind racing. The room was filled with coffer chests, the kind built to hold money. She had no desire to open any of them, given the name for this room, Greed Hurts. All she wanted was to get through alive, to help out Kerric, who was quickly advancing from the category of work acquaintance to friend. “I have a tattoo that makes me impossible to track, either by physical or magical means, but it only works for me and anything I carry. Do you know any spells that do the same?”

  Kerric shook his head. “I’ve never had a reason to learn. There’s this stretch, and a stretch coming up with lots of side paths—you can carry me on that—but it’s not for another seven, eight rooms. Speaking of which, we have to find the Oh My Gods The Fireball Trap, and then—”

  Recalling a round of tale-telling from some point in the last winter at one of the taverns, Myal interrupted him. “Isn’t that the one that Rick the Archer likes?”

  Snickering, Kerric nodded, making the ends of his curls bounce under his cap. “Yes, that trap.”

  “Wait—don’t talk,” she ordered him, holding up her hand.

  The doors in the Tower were so thick sometimes, an adventurer couldn’t hear anything short of an epic battle in the next room over, but there were other magical ways of eavesdropping, from enhancing one’s hearing to dredging up echoes out of the immediate or near past. That meant anything they said could be overheard by a competent mage.

  There was one solid way to stop it from happening. Stooping, she flexed her left bicep and scooped him up like a very overgrown child. Startled, he clutched at her shoulders. A good thing, too, since that let her free one hand from his waist. Lifting her hand to the back of her head, she felt up under her hairline at the back of her skull, and pressed.