by Ben Johnston
Anniya closed her eyes and shook her head. “You don’t understand, guys. I will be vilified if I don’t charge the Towers every day.”
Acida and Tom stood silent.
Anniya glanced up at the bright filigrees climbing the distant walls around them. “If I don’t do this, then everyone will blame me for the fall of the Towers.” The intricate patterns reflected in her eyes. “I have no choice.” She turned to look at Tom and Acida. “I have to keep the lights on.”
On the third day, in the late evening, after charging the Towers, Anniya exited the Library accompanied by Christopher and Tom. Outside the great building, Anniya glanced up at the darkening sky, seeing the soaring, nearest Tower. The top of the leviathan structure was at such a great altitude that, although the sky above was almost dark, The top of the tower caught the light of a distant sunset over the horizon, reflecting the warm colors onto the landscape below, blanketing the valley forest and rivers around the Library in a dim and ruddy, sunset-colored moonlight.
Tom pointed up to the sky with a frown. “What’s coming off the top of the Tower? Is that a cloud? Or smoke?”
Wispy streams of glittering mist were coming off of the top of the Tower. The sparkling wisps rose upwards, all joining together into thicker rivers of shiny smoke that continued to rise upward, finally vanishing as cloudy mist climbed above the atmosphere into space.
Anniya shook her head. “That’s not smoke, Tom.” She looked at the young scholar. “It’s ships. You’re looking at millions of spaceships.” She returned her gaze to the sight. “Little ones and really big ones. They’re all docking with or leaving from the docks on the upper floors of the towers.”
Christopher nodded his head. “So. Some floors are already evacuating.” He scratched his head. “It’s a little soon for that, if you ask me.”
Tom’s mouth hung open as he stared up at the spectacle. “Why would they leave? Anniya’s going to keep the School alive for at least another hundred years. Probably.” He looked over at Anniya. “Right?”
Anniya’s eyes fell away from the glittering mist in the sky, dropping to the concrete ground painted red by the Towerlight. “It reminds me of insects leaving a colony.”
Tom gazed up at the mist of ships, all glittering and glinting with the colors of the distant sunset as they flowed away from the Tower. “I think it looks like vapor. Evaporation.”
Anniya looked back up to the cloud of ships. “I can’t do this alone, guys.” She turned to Christopher. “Doctor Cernon. We need to find someone else who can make goldenlight.”
Chapter 45
On a raised stage in a large grass field in the center of the great sweeping valley that lay between the Towers, Anniya stood, once again, before an audience of thousands. The hot sun beat down on the true outdoor park as her eyes scanned the colorful crowd. Leaning forward, she spoke into the bell of a horn-shaped object, her voice booming out of two larger horn-shaped objects mounted on poles to her left and right.
“Alrighty then.” Anniya smiled, clasping her hands together. “Let’s give this another try.” She held her hands out at the audience. “You’re all lightmakers. That means you all know about mixing light.”
There was silence from the crowd.
“I mean, that goes without saying.”
More silence.
Anniya tapped the horn. The tapping sounded out over the crowd.
Anniya continued. “I can charge the Towers, so they’re sustained for now, but I am literally the only person in the universe who can do that. So it’s not…” She clenched her jaw, closed her eyes and gave her head a quick shake. “The point is that we need to find a lightmaker. One who can make goldenlight. Since this is the legendary School, we’re hoping that one of you is that lightmaker.”
A low mumbling arose as the audience members all gave quick, appraising glances to those sitting around them.
Anniya continued. “Or maybe I can show one of you how to be that lightmaker. To start, what I’m going to do is show you all goldenlight. First, that's what I’m going to do. Then.” She looked upwards, blinking, her mouth a line, then shrugged. “We’ll get to that part when we get there. First the goldenlight.”
A low but massive shuffling rose out of the audience as they shifted in their seats to fix their attention on Anniya, then silence. Holding her hand out, a blinding burst of gold-colored light flared forth in her upturned palm. The bloom shined glaringly, like a cloud of mirrored golden droplets all reflecting the sun directly into the eye, clearly visible to all, even in the hot noon daylight. She held the blinding flare up for all to see. Gasps hissed out from the great assembly.
Anniya grinned.
A distant shout rang out from somewhere in the crowd. “What’s goldenlight’s base light ratio?”
Anniya shook her head. “Yeah, no. So, I don’t know what base light ratios are exactly. I can’t do ratios. Or, I haven’t learned how to do ratios yet. I still don’t get how they’re supposed to work.”
Another shout. “Do you have the sigil for the light then? You have to visualize something. What’s the base pattern? Can you draw it? Is it a repeating sigil cycle?”
The gold bloom in Anniya’s hand diminished to a single spark, then went out. “No, I can’t draw it. What’s a sigil cycle? Look, I don’t envision sigils or seals. For me, it’s just a sensation. Sort of like how you can tell the difference between stone and fur just by touching them. Feeling their surfaces and prodding, folding and examining them with your hands.”
Another shout came reasonably. “Ok, then. If you feel goldenlight, then what does it feel like?”
Anniya gave a quick nod. “What does goldenlight feel like? Sure. Good question. It feels like.” She paused. “It feels like goldenlight.” She blinked, then shrugged.
Another voice came from the audience. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Anniya tried. “Well, like this.” She produced a glassy shield of light covering her fist. “This feels like.” She looked at the glassy encasing. “It feels like shieldlight.” She looked up at the audience.
An audience member near the front stood. “What do you mean? Shieldlight doesn’t feel like anything. And every child knows the shieldlight ratio.”
Anniya sighed. “Of course shieldlight doesn’t feel like anything. But to me it FEELS like shieldlight.
The same person, a man in an orange robe, was slapping the back of his hand against the open palm of his other. “But why don’t you use the ratio to make it? We all grow up wearing shieldlight amplifiers and working on our sigil focus. Every child lightmaker knows the shieldlight ratio.”
Anniya held out her hands. “Sure, sure. Even I know the ratio. One H, Two S. And I’ve seen the sigil. But I don’t know how you use that ratio to make shieldlight. I don’t get what the sigil has to do with the whole thing” She looked back at her gleaming fist. “And I’ve never used an amplifier.” Her glassy glove vanished.
Anniya stared at her empty hand. “I just feel it.”
Summoned later in the day by Jonathan, Anniya found and joined the white-haired man by the railing of a grand balcony overlooking a great Tower floor. The old director smiled and bowed his head at Anniya as she came to stand next to him. Together they gazed out over the complex structures and colorful landscape of this Tower floor’s plain.
“This is the Visual Arts floor of the Humanities Tower.” The old director turned to the golden girl. “The great School museum resides on this floor. Did you know that I was good friends with the last director of the museum? He was a wise man, and he had a saying.” Jonathan stood up straight and took in a deep breath. “It is easier to destroy than to create, and it is easier to create than to maintain.”
Anniya tilted her head. “So he was saying that destruction will always win.”
Jonathan’s grin faltered slightly. “He was saying that the best is the hardest, Anniya.”
The girl stood there by the railing with the white-haired man for a while, watch
ing artwork and installations being transported away by hovering vehicles, processing in convoys down the long, abandoned avenues and broad, empty walkways. In the center of this floor’s plain, in the middle of a verdant park, there stood a great, silver statue. The statue was of a woman holding her hand towards the sky. Her grand, gleaming head had just been removed and was being lowered to the ground using ropes hooked to an orderly swarm of flying vehicles.
Anniya shook her head. “All these rare, precious things. All of no real use.” She closed her eyes and turned.
Jonathan watched her as she walked away.
Tom accompanied Anniya to the School Central Library to visit the dark space of Tower thirteen. Because the concave depression in the pedestal would close for a period that was longer than a day, the times when it would open shifted gradually later and later every day. The current time slot was now in the early dawn.
Even early in the morning, a constant crowd was present to watch Anniya as she went down and came back up from charging Tower thirteen. Most still applauded and cheered for Anniya, offering her thanks and words of encouragement. Some, however, had taken to jeering, declaring that she was merely delaying the inevitable and giving false hope, or spitting accusations that she herself was the reason the Towers were going to fall.
After Tom had gone with her down to the dim floor of Tower thirteen and she had turned on the lights and they had came back up to the surface and passed by the crowd to exit the Library under a sky lit by the fresh, early colors of an the coming sunrise, Anniya paused and stared up at the Towers.
Backlit by the brighter sunrise from over the horizon, the Tower’s upper outlines blazed, throwing horizontal rays across the dawn sky, over their heads.
She drew in a breath. “Do you ever think about what it’s going to look like?” She looked down from the lightshow to Tom. “When they finally fall?”
Tom looked away from the spectacle to meet Anniya’s eyes. “I think everyone is, now that they know it might happen.”
Anniya sighed, looking down. “It will happen, Tom.” She raised her head to gaze again at the gleaming outline of the Tower in the cold, sunrise-colored sky. “When I’m gone, the Towers will crumble. They’re going to fall.”
Tom patted her on the back. “That’s not going to happen.”
Anniya, still staring upwards, shook her head. “You don’t know that. You can’t tell the future, Tom. You don’t know what’s going to happen.” She had a slight edge to her voice.
Tom raised his eyebrows as he replied in his soft tenor. “Nobody can tell the future, Anniya. Nobody can tell with certainty what is or what is not going to happen. But what is certain, what I can tell you about the future is that I’ll be in it with you. I’ll be with you every day you go to that fracted dim Tower thirteen. I’ll be there every time you turn the lights back on.”
Anniya, still staring upwards, grew a small smile.
Tom beamed at her, before turning to walk away towards the platform promenade.
She looked down from the painted sky at the young scholar. As she watched Tom walking away, Anniya’s smile wilted to a line.
Chapter 46
Jonas took an easy step towards the hard-angled Rechter. “Indeed. The collapse of the Towers would be a marvelous spectacle to behold, my Premier.”
“A spectacle?” The great Vectan leader, his back to Jonas, was gazing out through a great crystal window at a rainy nighttime forest. “It would be a marvel. The Towers’ remains, blazing through the atmosphere, falling mountain ranges of fire crashing through the sky, pulverizing the world that had nestled them, held them for so many millions of years.” He turned his frosty eyes away from the black forest to Jonas.
Jonas met the premier’s icy gaze. “In nature, Great Leader, the old die so the new may arise.”
Stiffly, the corner of Rechter’s mouth twitched. The hard man turned away from Jonas, returning to gaze at the cold gray forest outside the invisibly-clear crystal window. “Execute plan zero.” He turned his head, revealing his profile of stone. “Cut away goldenlight from the Union.” His one visible eye sliced to the young advisor. “Amputate their hope.”
He returned to gazing at the dark forest, turning his back to Jonas. “Then, we shall begin the End.”
Jonas left the throne room, the windows running with streams of rainwater, the crystal ceiling panes showing the black sky. The young advisor passed the imperial guards by the throne room doors. They bowed as he passed. He entered into the great main hall of the palace.
In the spacious main hall, people mingled beneath spanning crystal ceilings that, although the rainy sky outside was gray-black, glowed with a harsh brightness. As Jonas strode through the main hall, he nodded to a blonde Vectan soldier dressed in a crisp uniform. Colonel Alexander Glatchez.
Alexander’s chest was blanketed with multicolored, gleaming medals. The tall soldier nodded in return to Jonas, seperating from the large group to join him. Together, the tall colonel and the raven-haired advisor strode across the main hall, through a set of great wooden doors, and out into the dark torrent.
Outside the palace under the pouring night sky, they followed a paved walkway leading through the wet forest. Beneath their sloshing boots, the concrete glimmered with the reflections of flames from the path’s torches’ all burning full and bright. In the heavy rain, the blazing torches sizzled.
Water dripped steadily from thick bunchings of Jonas’ raven-black hair, running in small streams down his forehead. He stopped walking to pause at a railing overlooking a rushing river. Crashing white over stones and boulders, the black water heaved and surged, roaring.
Jonas looked away from the rushing river at the tall, blonde soldier standing in his soaked uniform. In the cold night, Jonas’ eyes glinted like emeralds in a cave. “Colonel, you will take the dark waters.”
“The sliprealm?” The colonel froze, staring at Jonas in amazement. “Is this the End?”
“Not just yet.” Jonas turned his attention back to the roaring, dark river. “This first run in the sliplight realm will involve only individuals. A squad, yourself, and a single shuttle equipped with a sliplight interactor. You will use the dark waters to enter the School, find and seize the Golden Girl, then bring her back here.”
Alexander swallowed hard. “Chair Advisor Apolas, the Golden Girl is a lightmaker. The sliplight plane is deadly for lightmakers.” The tall, dripping soldier clenched his jaw. “Even a single drop…” His blue eyes turned up to the falling rain.
Jonas stared at the river’s roaring, black whitewater. “So protect her.” He whipped his head around, fixing his gaze on the blonde soldier. “Protect her the same way you protect yourself, lightmaker.” Pine-needle green, even in the darkness, the advisor’s eyes pierced the tall man. “This is your mission, Colonel.” The advisor’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Do it.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Alexander stood up straight in the rain, saluting. “It shall be done, Advisor. For the Premier, and for Vectus.”
Chapter 47
In the middle of the night in a warm and sleepy forest, with a quick grass-green flash, Anniya knocked a man with sleepy brown eyes and a ponytail to the ground. She kneeled on the chest of his leather and metal jacket, her fist raised and ready to strike downward, encased in a glassy glow that illuminated the man’s gaunt face. “Hello Mr. Union spy. You’ve been eavesdropping, but now you’ll be listening.” Her fist reflected in his wide, dewey eyes. “Tell your spy commander or whoever’s your boss, tell the whole fracted Union, that I will not live my life as a battery!”
The spy continued to stare up at Anniya’s glowing, looming fist. “Hey, Golden Girl, just dim it down a little. I’m on your side, OK? SP assigned me to keep you out of harm.” He blinked at her fist, his mouth a line. “We in SP understand that you need a day off now and then.” His big eyes turned away from her fist to her eyes. “But, Golden Girl, you’ve been…”
Anniya squinted at the spy. “I’ve been, what?
”
“It’s just been more than a week since you. I mean. Don’t you want to save the School?”
The glowing glass vanished from around Anniya’s fist. “Don’t call me Golden Girl.” She removed her knee from the spy’s chest, allowing him to shuffle to his feet.
Anniya stood there, her hands on her hips. “The School is going to die when I die. Explain how that means I’ve saved it?”
“You’ve got to keep it alive for as long as possible. If the School falls, the Union falls; Vectus rolls over consuming everything. We need you, Anniya.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would the Union fall if the School falls?”
“The history, centralized knowledge, and communication that the invincible walls of the great Towers offer allows for the rapid conveyance of knowledge and the wisdom to know what to do with that knowledge.”
Anniya stared at the man. “That’s a lot of fancy words.”
The spy threw his hands in the air. “You never learned that when you were a kid, did you? Here’s another story they taught us as kids that you probably don’t know. The School is like the knot that ties everything together. If the School is lost, then the Union unravels. Without the Towers, the Union falls into chaos. It crumbles to pieces. And Vectus, one-by-one, picks up those pieces.”
Anniya took a step closer to the spy. “Sounds like a sad story.”
She placed her fingers on the spy’s forehead. “I don’t like sad stories.” With a quick blue pulse, Anniya knocked the Union spy out, catching the front of his jacket to lay him down gently on his back. She stood, her eyes darting around the dark, almost silent, forest for a moment before she turned and walked away.