by Brent Weeks
Teia was holding a hand up against the sun, trying to shield her eyes as she flared them open to paryl width, blinking from the intensity of the light.
There was a shout from inside. It was the Blackguards, but Kip knew they were simply doing their best to give Kip and the Mighty a warning.
“Does the door lock?” Cruxer asked.
Winsen shook his head. “Only from the inside. Anyone have arrows? Shit. Anyone know how to draft arrows?”
No one said anything.
Big Leo, arm still in a brace, leaned his weight against the door. “Please tell me they don’t have muskets,” he said. Still in pain from his broken arm, but resigned now.
Resigned to die well. This is what I’ve brought my friends to.
“Breaker,” Teia said. “Your spectacles. Try them. Try them all.”
Kip put on his sub-red spectacles. They were still a wonder, overlaying all the detail of sub-red without making him sacrifice the visible spectrum. Possibly the handiwork of Lucidonius himself. But not helpful. He flipped them back into their case and drew the superviolet, again, more helpful than narrowing his eyes to superviolet himself because he could see the spectra overlaid simultaneously. He looked around, not knowing what he was looking for.
The door rattled and jumped as someone tried to fling it open.
They hadn’t expected resistance. They tried again.
“Ignore that!” Teia said. “What about over here?”
At the door, Big Leo crouched down, still keeping his shoulder braced against the door, but as low as he could.
Two shots rang out, and wood splintered at head and shoulder level. If Leo hadn’t moved, he would have been dead.
Winsen pushed a tiny flashbomb through the hole the musket balls had torn.
“Kip!” Teia said. “I see something!”
Kip looked at the spot she was pointing out. There was something there, barely visible in superviolet. It was the shape of a key. Kip pressed it, hard, and it sank.
Text appeared, burning white in the floor at the very edge of the tower. It was in some language Kip didn’t know. “Uh … anyone read this? What is it?” Kip asked the squad.
Cruxer glanced over. “That’s archaic Parian. It says, um, it’s a formal case, um, something like ‘Would ye fly, o White?’” Another key appeared, larger.
“Yes!” Kip said. “That’s it!” There was another key next to the text. He pushed it down with his whole hand.
A panel slid back, and a long lever appeared. Kip looked at Teia, excited.
Wood exploded within a breath of Big Leo’s face. Shrapnel tore his cheek. “What are you waiting for?” he bellowed.
Kip heaved on the lever. He pulled it all the way back until it touched stone. They heard something grate and grind. They all looked around, expecting a hole to appear.
“Where’s the entrance? You think it’s some kind of chute?” Teia asked.
“Uh, there’s a whaddaythingit over here,” Ferkudi said, pointing.
On the inside of one of the crenellations, a bolt had appeared. Wrapped around the eye bolt was woven a steel cable that disappeared into the stones at their feet, which were glowing.
“Don’t stand on it!” Teia said.
“It … it ratchets, the lever,” Ben-hadad said.
“What?” Teia asked.
But Kip got it. He threw the lever forward and pulled it back again.
“Not much time left!” Big Leo shouted.
“Not acceptable!” Cruxer yelled. “Light ’em up!”
Who yells, ‘Not acceptable’?
With each throw of the lever, more steel cable popped out of the ground, slowly crossing the entire diameter of the tower. “What is it doing?” Kip asked. “Where’s the damn hole? There’s got to be some kind of chute, right?”
He heard the sounds of luxin being flung and shouts and musket fire and the wood door disintegrating, but he had time for none of it. His world had shrunk to this duty, this place. The steel cable finally popped fully free of the floor and wrapped over what looked like a pulley on a post at the edge of the tower.
Kip pulled it again and this time it stopped. He pushed the lever and pulled back with no resistance. It was finished, whatever it was. “That’s it!” he said. “What do we got?”
“That’s no chute,” Ferkudi said, looking off the edge.
“Captain! Can you hold the door without Ferkudi? I need him!” Ben-hadad said.
“Yes! Go!” Cruxer said. He had his spectacles on and was throwing luxin through the holes in the door. The door was barely hanging by its hinges, splintered and torn by musket balls.
Suddenly, there was a lull.
“Ferkudi, carry me over there,” Ben-hadad said.
Ferkudi did it immediately, joining Kip, who was standing at the edge. The steel cable had been freed not just from the top of the tower, but from the sides of it as well, buried under mortar and stone for hundreds of years. It had only been freed from the top ten paces or so of the tower.
“Orholam have mercy. It’s broken,” Teia said. “Look.”
The stones at her feet, directly under the post, had some text in archaic Parian.
“What’s it say?” Kip asked. “Anyone? Cruxer’s busy.”
“Says, ‘The Isle’ or ‘The Island.’ Actually I’m not really sure of the difference between those,” Ferkudi said.
Of course Ferkudi knew archaic Parian. Of course he did.
They looked out to Cannon Island, which was almost a straight shot west out into the sea from here. “There’s a post all the way over there.”
He was right. A perfectly matching post had popped up on Cannon Island. It, too, appeared to have steel cable wrapped over it, pointed toward them.
“What’s the point?” Kip asked. “Is it supposed to be an anchor for magic? Who can draft over that kind of distance?”
“No, no, no,” Ben-hadad said. “They’re supposed to connect by steel cable. But that would require a vast counterweight to take up all the slack and keep the cables taut.”
“Need some help over here!” Cruxer shouted. The battle had resumed. Cruxer was doing his best to reinforce the door with luxin, but it was a losing battle. The blue just shattered or dissolved when hit with musket balls. Big Leo’s red and sub-red weren’t any help at all.
“I’ll go,” Ferkudi said. He pulled two powder horns out of his pack and ran over to join them.
Ben-hadad said, “The counterweight. It would have to be huge, see, to tear the cable free … Ah! Look!” He pointed to the side where another crenellation had popped open to reveal a compartment filled with some machines of pulleys and belts. “You snap one of those onto the cable, and ride the cable all the way to Cannon Island.”
“The cable doesn’t go to Cannon Island!” Kip said. “It doesn’t go anywhere!”
“Something’s wrong, then. We have to release the counterweight.”
They were interrupted by Cruxer shouting, “We need shot for the blunderbuss! Anyone have anything we can use?”
Usually, you could put nearly anything into a blunderbuss: rocks, nails, musket balls, whatever. But the top of the tower was bare. Any luxin short of perfectly crafted solid yellow wouldn’t survive the shot, so that was out.
“Coins,” Kip said. “Our pay! Can’t spend it dead.”
They all looked at him for one moment like he was insane. And then they all tossed their coin sticks to Big Leo, who was sitting on the ground, back braced against the door. He popped the danars and quintars off the coin sticks and into the barrel.
The top third of the door was gone.
“They’re about to rush us,” Cruxer said, peeking through a hole. “Hurry, please.”
“Hurrying!” Big Leo said, stuffing pieces of a torn handkerchief as wadding down the barrel.
Kip ran back to the lever and pulled it again. Twisted, pulled, turned, and there! It grabbed and he heaved on it.
He could feel something give within the tower, and
suddenly the steel cable was zipping down. He turned his head and saw that the entire crenellation, a huge slab of rock, had broken away from the side of the tower and tumbled off. Suspended on another post just feet away from the wall, the counterweight plunged downward, pulling the cable taut with incredible force.
Kip ran to the island side of the Prism’s Tower to see his handiwork.
Ben-hadad was downcast. “And this,” he said, “is why engineers have to think of everything.”
The steel cable had pulled perfectly out of its hidden places along the side of the Prism’s Tower, and along the top of the walkway in the air between the Prism’s Tower, and the sub-red tower and the tiny strip of land before it came to the water. But then, instead of connecting straight to the far post on Cannon Island far away, the line went straight into the water of the bay.
“They laid that line along the sea floor hundreds of years ago,” Ben-hadad said. “But since then, it’s grown over with coral and Orholam knows what. The entire sea floor could have shifted. The counterweight isn’t heavy enough now.”
Kip looked at the angle of the line. If they rode the line, they would plunge into the water at incredible speeds, not even halfway to Cannon Island. The drop was too steep. They wouldn’t survive it.
They heard the roar of the blunderbuss as Cruxer fired, but couldn’t see anything beyond the broken door and the black smoke.
“We could … maybe draft brakes onto the mechanisms,” Ben-hadad offered. “But those of us who are injured … Breaker, there’s no way I can make that swim.”
“I hate to criticize when we’re on the verge of death and all,” Teia said, “but what good does it do us to get to Cannon Island?”
“It keeps us alive for another half hour?” Kip said. He scowled.
“They’re withdrawing!” Cruxer shouted.
“The ship is on the other side of Big Jasper,” Teia said. “You think we can make it down the line, row from there, get to Big Jasper, and run all the way to the docks before any of five hundred eighty-two Lightguards can intercept us?”
“It would be less than five hundred eighty-two now,” Ferkudi said. “We’ve killed at least—”
“They’ll catch us easily, and without a choke point like the door here to hold them off, we’re dead.”
“Teia, not helping!” Kip said. “Wait! Teia! You’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“Teia, get over here!” Kip said. He was flipping through his spectacles, one at a time, searching. “Paryl!”
“They’re coming! They’ve got some kind of shield wall!” Winsen said.
“What are we looking for, Breaker?” Teia asked.
“The script, it says, ‘To the Island,’” Kip said. “Why label a destination if there’s only one destination?”
“I could kiss you!” Teia said.
They looked at each other, and both looked away.
Winsen fired a musket. “Got one! But it’s not enough. They’ve got reinforcements!”
“There,” Teia said. She ran over, pushed a second key, and script and another key appeared. Kip pushed it, not worrying about the translation. They were running out of time. Pulled open the compartment and started ratcheting the lever.
“Faster!” Cruxer said.
“No, wait!” Ben-hadad said.
Kip stopped.
Ben-hadad said hurriedly, “This wire goes all the way to the southeast side of Big Jasper. It’s got to go right along a bunch of streets that are packed with people today! If this cable comes ripping up out of the streets with all this weight behind it, we could kill dozens. You have to give them time to get out of the way.”
“This is the Lightbringer’s life we’re saving!” Cruxer shouted. “Do it! That’s an order!” He was reloading the blunderbuss as fast as he could.
Kip heaved, and the crenellation-counterweight split off the side of the building and fell. This one was far larger than the other. It plunged and the steel line hummed, and then the counterweight crashed into the ground near the base of the Prism’s Tower far below—and through the ground, into the vast underground practice yards, as it had apparently been designed to do.
Kip only hoped no one had been killed below.
From his vantage, Kip couldn’t see what had happened in the city. He wondered if he’d just killed people. But before he could get to the edge to see, he had to make it past the line of fire of the wheeled shield wall that the Lightguards were pushing forward. In moments, they would have it all the way to the door, and their field of fire would expand to encompass most of the top of the tower.
Flipping on his red spectacles as he ran to take a position next to Cruxer, Kip drew red in and in, until he wanted to combust. He threw his hand forward and shot red out in a stream, as hard and concentrated as he could manage.
The stream splattered over and under and around the wheeled shield wall and deep into the hallway.
The Lightguards knew what red luxin meant. Five of the men who’d been pushing the shield wall forward panicked and bolted.
Panic is contagious, but not all are susceptible. A big man stepped up, smearing some of the pyrejelly off his face. He lifted his matchlock—but never got the shot off. When the burning slow match was brought close, the red luxin on his face ignited.
He shot the musket into the ceiling and the sound of a ricochet whine preceded the sound of rapidly spreading fire. He screamed.
Kip ran past the door and flames and found Ben-hadad fitting the wheel mechanisms over the steel cable.
“The line didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “It came off the top of the city walls. Ingenious. Who’s first?”
“I’ll go,” Kip said.
“Breaker’s not going first,” Cruxer said. “Thing may not work. I go first. Winsen, you’re second. Give me a ten count. Might need to fight at the other end. Then Ferkudi. Then the wounded: Big Leo, you first, then Ben-hadad. Then Kip. Teia, you bring up the rear.”
“Anything special I need to do?” Cruxer asked Ben-hadad.
“Just hold on,” Ben-hadad said. He snapped the mechanism onto the line. Cruxer stepped quickly onto the iron sides of the inverted T and gripped the post in his hand. “But I think—”
Cruxer hopped off the side of the Prism’s Tower and flew down the line. He just kept going faster and faster. The first section was nearly a free fall. In ten seconds, he was nearly beyond the sea and over Big Jasper.
“I was going to say,” Ben-hadad said, “that it would be about ten times safer to sit on the crossbar. Straddle it.”
Winsen did, sitting right on the edge. “If this racks my stones,” he started, but he didn’t get to complete the threat, because Big Leo pushed him off.
Ferkudi went next, and then Big Leo, who handed Kip a pistol. “Won’t be accurate for shit. It’s loaded with a danar. But might be better than nothing.”
Ben-hadad made sure Kip was paying attention to how the mechanism locked onto the cable as he prepped his own.
“Uh, is that the last one?” Kip asked.
“No, no, there’s a whole extra compartment of them,” Ben-hadad said. Then he went.
Teia ran over to the other compartment while Kip laboriously set up his own wheel, checking and double-checking it.
“Breaker?” Teia called out. There was something tight in her voice. “Kip?”
He looked over. She pulled a wheel out of the case. It was so corroded it was hardly recognizable. “What’s that?” he said. He didn’t want to understand.
“There was a hole in the compartment. It’s been getting rain in there for years, decades maybe.”
“Well, grab another one,” Kip said. “And hurry, Teia, I hear voices in the hall. They got drafters to put out the fires.”
“Breaker. They’re all ruined.”
They looked at each other. “You take this one,” Kip said. “I’ll draft a copy of it, and be right after you.”
“You’re not that good a drafter, and we both know it.”
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“I can do it.”
“Kip.”
“We don’t have time to fight, Teia.”
“Kip! I’ll stay. I can go invisible—” She started grabbing the hood to pull it up.
“There’ll be dozens and dozens of them. They’re all going to come flooding out at once. Dammit, Teia! They’ll find you by touch.”
“Breaker, Goss died to get you out of here. Don’t throw that away.”
“Don’t you turn this on me!”
“Don’t turn it on me! We have our orders.”
“You know the thing about fat kids?”
“What? What?!”
“When we don’t want to move, we ain’t gonna.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Come here, I just had an idea.” He flipped on his yellow spectacles. “We both go.”
He sat, straddling the inverted T, not far from the edge, but not so close she could just push him and make him go.
“There’s no way it’s going to hold both of us,” Teia said.
“Lap, now!”
Teia grabbed the center bar and swung one leg around it, straddling the T and Kip from the opposite side.
Her eyes went wide as she settled into place, but not from sitting on his lap. “Kip! Go! Kip, go, go, go! Aram!”
But instead of helping him push off, she was leaning to Kip’s left, the same leg he was trying to rock forward. He realized she was trying to draw the pistol he’d tucked behind the lens holster, but it was trapped underneath them.
A musket fired behind Kip, and Kip felt something shift. He hadn’t been hit. He looked at Teia; she hadn’t been hit either, but she was looking up. He followed her gaze. The bullet had hit the mechanism where the inverted T connected to the wheel. As Kip and Teia watched, the wheel rolled down the cable without them.
They were now tangled together, sitting on a bar completely unconnected to the cable.
“Would you believe I was aiming for your head?” Aram said. “Lucky miss, for you, huh? Thing is, I’m a lot better with a spear.”
One thousand one. One thousand two. Kip had never successfully drafted solid yellow luxin in less than a six count. Every time he went faster, his yellow broke.
Teia finally reached Kip’s pistol. She tugged on it, but it was held in place. She pulled harder. Gave up. She started to stand—