J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Ben looked away, thinking. “The Apex. That crazy equation he was always working on. The only person to ever come out of the Strange Lands.”

Ben had never put much stock in the Librarian’s private research, but Mira figured that was because the old man’s equations were one of the few things Ben couldn’t wrap his mind around.

“That’s… fascinating,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change anything. Apex or not, the Assembly have her now. They went farther into the Strange Lands, Mira, not back. I’ve never heard of the Assembly doing that. But these did.”

“I have to try,” Mira said.

“Mira.” There was a subtle hint of desperation in his voice. “If you do this… you do it alone. You know that.” Mira felt a chill run through her. “It’s simple math. You won’t make it.”

At his words, Mira felt two things: trepidation, because a part of her believed him. She had the proof, didn’t she? But she felt something else, too: anger. What he was saying wasn’t intended to hurt her, she knew. Everything he said was based on facts and data, but they still amounted to one thing.

“You don’t believe in me.” She stared back at him. “You never have.”

“I’m just telling you the truth. Because you mean the world to me. And I… can’t lose you.” Mira sighed at the faint edge of emotion in his voice. He did care. He was just blunt. “You don’t have it in you to make the tough decisions that surviving here requires.”

Mira nodded. “It would be easier if I were more like you. But I’m not. I have to go after them. Because I owe them. Both of them.”

“I need you,” Ben said, his voice wavering the slightest bit.

“No,” Mira told him. She touched his face. “You don’t need anyone, not in here.”

She could see in his eyes that he was torn. Which was unusual for him. He would come if he could, but, in his way of thinking, he simply couldn’t. Ben sighed and nodded to where her packs and Lexicon sat. “I had them loaded with water and food. And I gave you some of our reagents for the waist pack.”

Mira stared at him curiously. Ben just shrugged.

“Figured this is what you’d choose,” he said. “It’s what the math pointed to.”

Ben knew her better than anyone, and even now it was a comfort.

“This will be the first time we’ve gone into the Strange Lands without each other,” he said. “It feels wrong.” His hands gently pulled the necklaces from her shirt. Among them there was the old brass dice necklace. He held it in his hand. “You still wear it.”

“Every day. Even though you don’t believe in luck.”

“Only with you,” he said, looking back up at her. “Only with you.”

Ben leaned forward and gently kissed her. She kissed him back. It felt natural. Familiar. It was comforting. It pulled her. But she couldn’t stay here.

Mira backed away, tears beginning to form. Then she grabbed her things. “Can you… do something for me?”

“Anything.”

Mira opened her pack and pulled out the Chance Generator. Instantly she saw Holt on top of the plane, his hand hovering to strike. It wasn’t him, she told herself. But it was hard to remember that, hard not to see that image.

She hated the artifact, it made her sick just holding it.

“Is that…?” Ben’s voice was curious.

Mira nodded. “Holt used it in Midnight City to get us out. We brought it here to destroy it, but… it started affecting him.”

“The compulsion,” Ben said.

“He finally gave it up, but I don’t like carrying it. Would you…?”

Ben held out his hand for the artifact. “The fourth ring Anvil’s on the way to the Core. I’ll destroy it when we get there.”

At his promise, she felt like a weight had lifted off her. She handed it to Ben and he studied it inquisitively. For a moment, Mira felt a twinge of concern as she watched him with the artifact. But she pushed it away. Ben was too smart—he knew the risks, knew the price that came with it. He would never use it.

They stared at one another a moment more. Ben’s eyes had more emotion in them than she had ever seen. “Be careful,” he told her. “For me. ”

Mira smiled a little. “Have you seen the scorpion yet?” she asked. It was a personal question, a private one, just between them. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was smiling a little, too.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Keep looking.” And then she turned and started moving, heading south, following the river. It was amazing, how hard it was. Not just leaving Ben, but also the safety and familiarity he represented. She was moving into unchartered territory in more ways than one.

Mira walked for about a mile, following the river, before she noticed something odd. The overgrowth around the trees that flanked the water stirred as she moved. Like something was pushing through it, following her.

Mira frowned when she figured it out. “You can come out now.”

A shiny black nose pushed through the grass, followed by a fuzzy head with pointed ears. Max stared at her over the distance, and she heard a low growl.

Mira almost laughed. At least something was still familiar. “I’m going after them, what more do you want?”

Max didn’t move.

“Don’t guess you have any ideas on how to find them?” If he did, the dog didn’t say.

Mira saw the necklaces were still hanging outside her shirt. She grabbed them to stuff them back inside, then noticed one of them. It had a tiny compass for a pendant. And the strange thing about it was that the needle didn’t point north. It pointed northwest. Mira smiled. She had given Zoey an identical necklace weeks ago in the Drowning Plains. They were both Strange Lands artifacts, and they were linked. They always pointed directly to each other.

“What do you know,” she said. It didn’t solve everything, but it was a much better position to be in than a few seconds ago. Now she just needed a way to deal with the Assembly. An idea occurred to her. A desperate one—but those were the only kind she had now.

Mira looked back to Max, still hovering in the grass near the trees. “You coming or what?”

ZOEY TRIED NOT TO CRY, but it wasn’t easy. She’d been hanging underneath the green-and-orange tripod for hours as it darted over the ground. The netting that held her was some kind of thin superstrong metal, and it was sharp, too. It cut into her skin, and the worst part was, the more she moved, the tighter it got.

It was night now, and what she could see of the landscape raced past—but it made no sense.

It wasn’t trees or grass or farmland. It was cars. Thousands of them, all different kinds and sizes, stretching ahead unendingly, along some desiccated highway. Where was she? Still in the Strange Lands? She’d lost track of how long they’d been moving, and she had no idea how fast the walkers could go.

How would anyone find her now, she wondered. This far away, lost in the dark. She felt more alone than she ever had. The first thing she could remember was Holt finding her in the wreckage of that ship, and since then she’d always been with him and Mira and the Max. No matter how scary things got, they were always there, and now they weren’t. She felt tears welling up and pushed them back.

The world ceased its rhythmic bobbing as the walker slowed. When it stopped, the net released. Zoey came down hard on her elbow, but before she could cry out, there was an intense flash of blinding blue light. She felt the netting that held her dissolve away.

For the first time in hours, her limbs stretched out, and Zoey’s eyes teared at the relief of it.

Then she sensed movement around her. There were nine of them. She couldn’t see them yet because of the blue light, but she knew all the same. This close to her, each of their presences glowed separately in her mind, like colors. Not specific colors, but all colors at once, each blending and swirling in a unique way all its own.