The Severed Tower

by J. Barton Mitchell

  They looked down at her. The little girl had an arm around the dog’s neck while she scratched his ears.

  Mira frowned. “I doubt that. Unless his smell overpowered the pain.”

  “The Max doesn’t smell!” Zoey insisted.

  “You know, if her powers are causing the headaches, it’s just another reason she shouldn’t use them,” Holt said. “The Assembly come running every time she does.”

  “Once we get to the Strange Lands, that won’t be a problem.” Mira smoothed the little girl’s hair. “The Assembly never go in there.”

  “I can’t even imagine that,” Holt said. “Not having to look over our shoulder every five minutes.”

  “We might lose the Assembly,” Mira replied, “but there’ll be plenty of other things to watch out for. You might end up missing our alien friends.”

  Holt doubted that was true, but then again, he had very little idea what was ahead of him. He’d never been farther north than Midnight City, and certainly never stepped foot in the Strange Lands. Yet, their plan was to go farther than even that.

  In the Midnight City artifact vault, Zoey had interacted with the Oracle, a major artifact that functioned something like a fortune-teller. Holt didn’t completely understand all that it had revealed to the little girl, but it had been clear about one thing: To get the answers Zoey needed, there was a place she needed to go—an infamous landmark in the center of the Strange Lands called the Severed Tower. Supposedly, so the stories went, if you could survive the Strange Lands and make it to the Tower, it would grant you one wish.

  It always sounded like a fairy tale to Holt, but lately he’d been witness to some fairly amazing things he wouldn’t have believed a few months ago. He really didn’t know what to think anymore. All he knew was that Zoey said she needed to get to this Tower, and he had promised to help her.

  “Is that a way out, Holt?” Zoey asked. Holt followed her gaze upward with his flashlight.

  A steel ladder ascended the concrete wall to what looked like the bottom of a manhole. “Good eye, kid.” Holt tested the ladder. It was rusted, but it seemed sturdy enough.

  He quickly scaled it and pushed the heavy cover out of the way. Daylight poured in and Holt winced at the brightness before crawling up and out.

  They were near the edge of the old city now, just a few wrecked houses and buildings, most of them burned-out husks. He looked south, where they had come from. There were no sounds of explosions, no flashes, but there were several columns of smoke a few miles away, probably from the battle they’d escaped.

  While there was no sign of anything now, those green-and-orange ones could cloak themselves, Holt reminded himself, so you never really knew.

  He looked north, saw the plains widening and advancing again, back toward where they needed to go. Toward the Strange Lands.

  He hoped Mira was right about the Assembly not following them inside. That would be a blessing, even in spite of her insistence that the place itself could be much worse. It was a chance he was happy to take.

  “Look safe?” It was Mira, underneath him.

  “Safe as it’s gonna be, ladies,” he said. “Come on.”

  In a few minutes they were all up, moving northward, Holt making sure to take advantage of whatever limited cover the remains of the urban environment offered. All too soon they’d be back in the plains, where everything was open.

  The giant Antimatter storm they’d witnessed a few days ago was gone now. They could no longer see its strange, multicolored lightning, but there was another indication they were headed the right way: the eerie aurora effect, wavering and fluctuating like the pictures he’d seen of the northern lights as a kid. Only these were visible in the middle of the day, and they were coming closer.

  Instinctively, Holt’s hand slid into his pocket—and found it empty.

  There was a brief flash of panic before he remembered he’d shoved the abacus inside his pack. He relaxed. He could get to it if he needed to, he told himself.

  Regardless of what he’d said, Holt knew if they got into something really dangerous—if Mira’s or Zoey’s lives were in danger—he’d do the same thing he did in Midnight City. He’d use the Chance Generator again … but only in an emergency, he told himself. Only in an emergency. He’d promised, after all.

  * * *

  SUNRISE LIT A HUGE rolling landscape of hills covered in overgrown prairie grass. Holt had never been this far north, and he couldn’t believe how open and empty it seemed. He understood why in the World Before it had been called Big Sky Country. The blue above them was the dominant feature, so big it felt like walking in a snow globe. In the distance, the aurora continued to waver.

  Mira was re-sorting her gear underneath the overgrown water tower they’d made camp next to. It stood at the top of a crest overlooking the Missouri river, as it cut a path through the hills to the north.

  Zoey and Max were playing “Keepaway Fetch,” an invention of their own making. The game began like regular Fetch, in that Max gleefully raced after a thrown ball, but after that it took a hard turn in a different direction. The dog was much more interested in someone chasing him to get the ball back, than in returning it and starting over.

  Zoey screamed gleefully as she ran after Max, in and out of the rusted support columns of the tower, but the dog was too quick, and kept slipping away.

  “Zoey, watch out for sharp things, please,” Mira intoned without looking up. If the little girl heard, she didn’t show any sign. She just kept laughing and spinning after Max.

  Holt looked at Mira. Artifact components littered the ground in front of her—pencils, magnets, vials of all kinds of dust, batteries, paper clips, coins of different denominations wrapped in plastic. They looked like everyday objects, but they were anything but. Each was imbued with unique, otherworldly properties, and they could be combined into stronger and stronger ones that did incredible things.

  Holt had hated artifacts even before he met Mira, but they had their uses, he had to admit now, and Mira was amazingly skilled with them. She was studying one in particular, a complicated combination made up of over a dozen different objects, all tied together with linked silver chain and purple leather twine. Its main aspect was an antique gold pocket watch that rested on the exterior, with a silver δ ornately etched into the metallic cover.

  Holt had only seen the artifact twice since they’d left Midnight City. Mira kept it deep in her pack, as far away from her as possible. She hated it. It repulsed her, and for good reason.

  It was the ugly result of an obsession with forging a combination that could slow down the Tone but it had all gone wrong. The combination didn’t slow down the Tone, it accelerated it. Made it so that anyone, Heedless or otherwise, would Succumb in a matter of seconds. Making it had cost her everything—her life in Midnight City, her freedom, whatever future she might have had.

  She was bringing it into the Strange Lands to destroy it, and Holt didn’t blame her.

  “You okay?” Holt asked.

  Mira stared at it a moment more, then stuffed it down into her pack. “Yeah.”

  “You can destroy it at this Crossroads place?”

  “It’s not that easy.” Mira’s voice was bitter. “To destroy an artifact, you have to be in the ring where it was created. If it’s a combination, you have to be in the ring of its most powerful component.”

  “So what ring is that, then?” Holt asked.

  “The fourth.” There was a look in her eyes suddenly that Holt had never seen there. To see it in Mira was startling. It looked like … fear.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  Mira blinked and looked up, but not at him. She looked at Zoey, running back and forth after Max. “I’m … worried.”

  “About what?”

  “The Strange Lands.”

  “You’re a Freebooter. You’ve been there a million times.”

  “Never on my own.” Her voice was so low he almost couldn’t hear it. “Except once. A
long time ago.”

  Holt studied her in confusion. He had never seen Mira rattled, never seen her doubt herself. She was always so confident, so capable.

  “Mira, if anyone can get us to where we need to go, it’s you,” he said, trying to reassure her. “Zoey knows that, too.”

  She looked back at him. The fear was still there, he could see it even more clearly now and it felt like Mira wanted to tell him something. To reveal whatever weight she was carrying—but Zoey’s voice stopped her before she could.

  “How do we know when we’re in the Strange Lands?” The little girl and Max were wrestling on the ground now. The foreign look vanished from Mira’s eyes. Whatever it was, she had pushed it back down.

  “We’ll feel it, for one thing,” Mira replied. “It’s called the Charge. Makes the hair on your arms stand up. Gets stronger the farther you go in. But there’s only so many ways into the Strange Lands. The Crossroads, where we’re headed, is one of them. Once you leave there … you’re inside.”

  “Why can you only go in from certain places?” Zoey asked.

  “Because of the Stable Anomalies.”

  “What’s a … ‘stablonamy’?”

  Mira smiled. “Anomalies are the dangerous parts of the Strange Lands, honey. Stable ones are permanent, they stay in place for the most part, and they’re usually invisible. Unstable Anomalies can move around, but the good thing is you can see them.”

  “Like the storms a few days ago?”

  Mira nodded. “Exactly. All the rings are circled by Stable Anomalies, including the first. You can only enter the first ring in a few places, where there’s a gap. The Crossroads is one of those places. It’s the main entrance for Freebooters from Midnight City, so it gets a lot of traffic.”

  Something flashed and caught Holt’s eye to the northeast. He looked and saw the Missouri river, and on the river he saw the source. In the distance, powering north, were two large river craft painted solid black. Each flew the same flag.

  Red, with a white, eight-pointed star.

  Holt felt his heart skip. He hit the ground, pulling Zoey and Mira down with him. They studied him questioningly, until he nodded toward the river.

  Mira’s eyes widened when she saw it. “Menagerie. What the hell are they doing here?”

  “Raider ships,” Holt replied. It was a nice way of saying pirate ships. They attacked merchant vessels and River Rat crews up and down the larger streams, and it was a fairly new phenomenon. The Menagerie was a pirates and thieves guild, and until a few years ago they kept mainly to a place called the Barren, the desert wastelands of the old American Southwest. Then, the first Menagerie pirate ships appeared up and down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as far south as the Low Marshes. It meant they were expanding, and for a group as dangerous as the Menagerie, that wasn’t a good thing.

  “Never heard of them coming this far north, have you?” Mira asked.

  The answer was no. There was no profit in it. Few ships worth plundering ran this stretch of the river.

  “Why’d we drop down?” Mira turned back to him.

  “Just playing it safe. If those ships are having a bad week, there’s nothing stopping them from unloading a shore party and coming after us.”

  Of course there was a lot more to it than that. The Menagerie had put a death mark on Holt’s head almost a year ago. A death mark from the highest ranks, and he’d been on the run from them ever since. The bounty on Mira’s head was supposed to finance his trip east to escape, but, well … complications had ensued, as always.

  Mira knew he had a death mark, but Holt had never told her from whom, if only because it would beg other questions. Questions he wasn’t eager to answer. What would Mira think if she knew the truth? The half-finished tattoo under Holt’s glove itched.…

  “The Missouri goes almost right to the Crossroads,” Mira said, watching the ships fade away. “But why head there?”

  “Trading for artifacts?” Holt guessed.

  “Midnight City’s much better for that. And the Menagerie don’t mount Strange Lands expeditions. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Add it to the ever-growing list,” Holt replied glibly.

  Mira turned and smiled, and as she did the thought occurred to Holt that he was keeping a lot from her. More than he’d kept from anyone else. What he wasn’t sure about was if that was a sign of his feelings for her—or a sign of something changing within him.

  He honestly didn’t know.

  They all watched, hunkered down near the water tower, until the boats finally disappeared in the distance.

  Everyone finished packing quickly and moved out, pushing through the tall grass and climbing down the soft, rolling rise. As they walked, Holt kept checking the length of the river. He would have thought running into the Menagerie was the least of his worries. Yet here they were. And he was walking right toward them.

  He had a sudden intense desire to have the Chance Generator in his hands.

  3. CROSSROADS

  HOLT, ZOEY AND MIRA WALKED north along an old dirt road dotted with abandoned cars and crumbling farmhouses. Max trotted ahead of them, bouncing back and forth between the roadsides, always finding something exciting to smell or look at. Eventually they passed a barn that sat off to the the right. A big two-story one, with its giant doors open, and the broadside of its faded red wood wall facing them. Huge letters stood out on its side in a white-painted notice, peeking out above the overgrown corn stalks.

  STRANGE LANDS BEGIN 1 MILE

  STAY ON ROAD

  WELCOME TO THE CROSSROADS

  SOUTHERN ENTRY FOR RING 1

  The δ symbol was there, too, filling the barn’s wall. The aurora effect ahead of them seemed bigger now, shimmering in giant waves that ebbed and flowed in the sky. They were almost there … but where was “there”?

  The barn welcomed them to the Crossroads, but as far as Holt could see it was nothing but empty, overgrown farmland. The only thing he did notice was that the road continued ahead of them and passed through the remains of a chain-link fence and gate, with an old, crumbling guard shack. Other than that, there was no indication of what was beyond. The road just abruptly ended a couple of hundred feet beyond the gate. Vanished from sight, as though it had fallen into a hole. It made him nervous.

  Next to him, Zoey rubbed her head.

  “More headaches?” It was becoming a trend, and he was worried. Zoey had come to mean a lot to him, and at the thought, he noticed he didn’t feel the same discomfort he would have only a few months ago. The little girl had really changed him, as ironic as that was.

  She nodded. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt too much. I can be tough.” Zoey held one of Max’s ears in her hand as they walked. “But Mira’s nervous.”

  Holt looked ahead at Mira, walking several lengths in front of them. “Why?”

  “It’s this place, I think. She’s never been in charge here, not really. It bothers her.”

  It was strange, how used to Zoey’s ability to read other people’s emotions he’d gotten. It was another sign of all that had changed. “Having responsibility for people can be scary. But she’ll be fine. She has it in her.”

  “I know that,” Zoey said sadly, “but I don’t think she does.”

  Holt stared at Mira as they walked. She had to see it—how good she was, how skilled. Why wouldn’t she? It was obvious to him; it had been since he first met her, and it was obvious to Zoey as well.

  “Heads up,” Mira yelled back at them. They were almost to the chain-link fence. The road still vanished just past it, but something was different now.

  There was a crowd of people there. Dozens of them, all kids.

  As they got closer, Holt noticed they wore bulging packs, and most had duffel bags or boxes in their hands, too. If he had to guess, he’d say they’d been displaced and had as much of their personal items with them as they could carry.

  Max growled low, and Holt put a reassuring hand on the dog. All the same, he removed the
safety buckle on his Beretta.

  “Occurs to me way too late that we should have gotten you a pair of sunglasses,” Holt observed. Mira sighed in exasperation and looked back at him. It was an obvious thing they had both overlooked. Her eyes were clear now, the black tendrils of the Tone were no longer present. Anyone who knew her would eventually notice the change, and the questions that would follow were going to be tough ones to answer.

  “Are they Freebooters?” Zoey asked.

  “No. They live at the Crossroads,” Mira said. “And they’re leaving.”

  “Is that unusual?” Holt inquired.

  “Yes.”

  They walked through the old gate, passing the empty guard station, toward the crowd. Old U.S. Air Force warning signs still hung on the fence, but Holt barely noticed them. He was studying the approaching crowd warily, but no one seemed to be paying attention to them. They were too busy yelling and fighting. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t being well received.

  Holt saw a boy—short, probably nineteen, with blond hair and a long scar across the left side of his face that crossed his brow, jumped over his eye socket, and continued down his cheek. It was an old scar, Holt could tell. Even from this distance, Holt could see the kid’s eyes were almost colored in with black.

  “This isn’t a debate,” the boy shouted at the crowd. Four other kids stood on either side of him. They were armed. Two with slings, the others with old hunting rifles. They must be enforcers. They were the only things keeping the crowd at bay.

  “Deckard didn’t approve this!” someone shouted.

  “Deckard isn’t here,” the boy shot back. “And no one’s heard from Polestar in a week. You can leave whatever you want, there won’t be anyone left to steal it. When it’s safe, I’ll send word to—”

  The crowd erupted into more yells, cutting him off. Some of the kids moved forward—then backed up immediately as the boy’s armed guard raised their weapons.

  “Go, or stay outside, but you’re not coming back down! Get used to it!” The boy turned and moved off, leaving the four guards. Some of the residents conceded defeat, heading south down the road, lugging their gear and items. The rest kept yelling.