J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Mira gulped in huge lungfuls of air—and then instantly coughed it back out raggedly. The hands pulled her up and through the door, and she felt her back lay flat against the warm, dusty surface.

Figures hovered over Ravan. The girl wasn’t moving, she just lay lifeless in the bright sun.

In blurry slow motion, Mira watched the pirates work on her. They worked on her so long, Mira was sure she wasn’t coming back. But suddenly she started coughing, expelling lungs full of water onto the ground.

She was awake. She was alive.

Mira sighed and lay back, letting the sun burn the chill away, feeling her mind returning, her memories, her sense of self. Mira had never felt such a strong need to simply not move in her whole life.

“Mira!” A small figure landed on top of her. “You’re okay!”

It was Zoey. Mira smiled and held her. Her vision was sharpening, and she saw Max amid all the Menagerie surrounding them, running excitedly forward.

Right before he reached them he stopped short, staring at Mira, unsure. Some things never change, she figured.

“Don’t worry,” Zoey told her. “The Max is happy, too.”

Next to them, Ravan weakly rose and sat up. Neither looked at the other, they just stared at the landscape through the chain-link fence.

“You’re an idiot,” Ravan said.

Mira nodded. “You could make the argument.”

The storm was gone, but its effects were going to last awhile. The wheat fields that had surrounded them before had been wiped away, leaving only barren ground and rocky hills devoid of grass or trees. The wind blew around them slowly. With no trees or wheat stalks to stir anymore, it sounded almost mournful.

“Can you get us to Polestar?” Ravan asked pointedly.

“I think so.”

“Once you do, all debts are paid,” Ravan said. “You take the kid and the dog and you go. No one will stop you.” She turned and stared at Mira, and the look was weighted. Something had passed between them in the silo. It had only been a few hours, but they had emerged very differently. Certainly not friends, but they weren’t entirely enemies anymore.

“And Holt?” Mira asked.

Ravan shook her head. “Holt’s off the table. He’s going back to Faust, and that, my dear, is that.”

Mira looked to where several of Ravan’s men stood guard over a still-unconscious Holt. She studied his unmoving figure on the ground, watched his chest rise and fall. Max lay protectively at Holt’s side again, glaring at the pirates. “You should keep the dog,” Mira said. “He’s a pain in the ass, but Holt loves him.”

Ravan studied her strangely. “Okay.”

After a moment, Mira stood up and made herself start walking, taking Zoey with her. It wasn’t easy. She was more exhausted than she even knew.

“Mira.” It was the first time Ravan had ever used her name, and the sound of it was jarring.

Mira turned and looked back. Ravan sat staring, torn, as if she wanted to say something that she simply couldn’t find the words for.

Mira just nodded. “Don’t mention it.” Then she and Zoey moved off to gather their things. As they did, Mira glanced northeast to where they were headed. The sky there was darkening quickly.

RAVAN DROVE HER MEN hard after the silo, not just because she wanted to make up for lost time, but also, Mira guessed, because she wanted to show, in spite of her ordeal, she was still capable. As much as her men might respect her, they did so because of her strength. Mira had a feeling it wasn’t a good thing to be seen as weak in the Menagerie.

They’d exited the Western Vacuum a few hours ago and pushed on down an empty highway, near what used to be the border between North and South Dakota, while the sky blackened and more dark Antimatter clouds flashed their strange, foreboding colors. Finally Mira saw what she’d been hoping for.

An old rural park, where a traveling carnival had set up before the invasion. Like most ruins in the Strange Lands’s inner rings, it was aging slower than it should. Grass and weeds had grown up around its roller coasters and ferris wheels, but for the most part it looked as if it had only been abandoned a year or two.

The park was a place where Freebooters made camp on the way to Polestar, a safe zone free of Unstable Anomalies, a navigation landmark Mira had seen time and time again. Seeing it now brought a tremendous feeling of relief. It meant tomorrow they would be back on course, almost to Polestar.

Of course, what happened after that Mira wasn’t sure.

They made camp in the carnival, the roller coasters twisting and towering over them as strange shadows. As Mira walked through the camp, she saw the Menagerie guards tying Holt to an old merry-go-round. When they were done, they left him there, laughing, moving off to get their share of the camp food that was cooking at various fires.

Mira moved toward him. No one stopped her.

Up close, she could see the nasty gash on Holt’s head where the Menagerie had knocked him out. It made her mad, the injury. It hadn’t been necessary. He’d been through enough.

Both his legs and arms were tied, bound between two colorfully painted merry-go-round horses that immortally kicked and ran, even though the ride would never spin again. Instinctively, Mira’s gaze moved to his right hand. The fingerless glove he always wore was gone. Mira remembered what Ravan said about Menagerie members taking the same tattoo. A Troth, she’d called it.

She couldn’t see what was there; it was too dark. If she moved closer…

But did she really want to? Right now it was an unknown. And things had changed between them. But she did want to know. She wanted to know the truth, and if it was bad, she could learn now while he was asleep, and process it all. She wouldn’t have to face him.

Mira moved forward and took Holt’s hand, twisted it so she could see the wrist. Her heart sank.

A tattoo was revealed in the dim light, only half-finished, the top half had yet to be inked, but it did look like it would have been a bird, a black one. Just like Ravan’s.

Mira jumped as Holt’s hand closed around hers.

His eyes blinked and opened, staring around him groggily. When then they found her he smiled. Mira stared down at him a moment—and then slipped her hand out and pulled away.

His smile vanished as he remembered everything. “Oh. Right…”

Mira moved a few steps away, rubbing her shoulders. It felt cold suddenly.

“Where are we?” Holt asked.

Mira told him everything quickly. The loss of the Crossroads, finding the Menagerie, convincing them to help, Ravan, rescuing him in Kenmore, the missile silo. When she finished, Holt studied her, impressed, and a little guilty, maybe, that she had done so much on his behalf.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Mira shrugged. “Ravan has been very talkative.” It took a moment for what she said to sink in, but when it did, Holt looked away. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“It’s… not something I talk about, Mira.”

“I think I deserved to know,” she said. “Do you have any idea how many friends of mine have been killed by the Menagerie?”

“No. But I think, after everything I’ve done, I should have earned your trust.”

Mira just stared at him. He was right, she knew, but that didn’t make it feel any better.

“I was different back then,” he said. “It was after Emily. Which meant it was a time in my life where I didn’t want to feel anything. So I didn’t. I only thought about survival, and the Menagerie was a really good fit for that.”

“Is that all it was?” Mira asked. “Your tattoo looks a lot like Ravan’s.”

“You really think that’s fair? Given what I had to watch at the Crossroads?”