J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“I tried to tell you, Ravan,” Holt said, “but I knew if I did… that you wouldn’t understand. I knew that you’d try to stop me.”

Ravan lashed out in quick fury, kicked the plate of food away and sent it crashing into the merry-go-round. The pirates nearby all looked up from what they were doing. Ravan didn’t care, she just glared at Holt, and he could see the pain in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it.

“Maybe I would have come with you.” Ravan’s voice was a whisper now. “Maybe you should have asked.”

“Maybe I should have.”

The pain slowly seeped out of Ravan’s blue eyes, leaving only anger. She looked behind her, nodded to someone out of sight. “Somebody wants to see you.”

Holt heard thundering feet, and watched a suitcase-sized shadow come barreling toward him.

Max slammed into him, rubbing his face into Holt’s, and he felt the first warmth of happiness he’d had since waking. He rubbed his hands along Max’s flanks, scratching him. He seemed in good shape, well taken care of.

Holt looked up at Ravan appreciatively. “Thank you.”

“She said he was your dog. She said he means a lot to you.”

Holt could hear the tightness in her voice. He guessed who Ravan was referring to. “Did you hurt her?”

Ravan smiled again and leaned forward. “Don’t worry. She gave as good as she got.”

Holt felt her take his right hand. Her hands were rougher than Mira’s; harder, but no less feminine. The way her fingers slid easily through his brought back memories. Not unpleasant ones.

The half-formed image stood out prominently on his wrist. Ravan ran her fingers gently over it, tracing the broken outline.

“I would’ve liked to see this finished,” she said.

Holt looked at Ravan’s right wrist, saw the black, stoic bird tattooed there, its lower half identical to his incomplete one. Then his eyes followed the line of her arm up from the tattoo, found the scars. There were three now, he saw. There had been only one when he left. “Is one of those me?” he asked.

Ravan nodded, pointed to the second one. “I carry you everywhere,” she said. He looked into her eyes. It was funny how fast you could be drawn back into old patterns, dangerous though they may be.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Ravan moved even closer. “You don’t have to die, Holt. I can make Tiberius see reason. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“‘Examples must be made.’ Wasn’t that always Tiberius’s philosophy?”

“Tiberius will see you’re too valuable to kill,” Ravan replied. “It won’t be without pain, without punishment; it won’t be exactly like we planned… but you can come back. I know you have principles, I know you have a code. I think they’re weaknesses, but we can work around them.”

“What if I can’t work around them?”

“We’ll find a way.” She took his face in her hands, made him look up at her. Her hands were warm and firm. “I haven’t gone a day without thinking about you, Holt.”

She was close enough for him to take in her scent. It was different from Mira’s, not the calming aroma of mint and spices, but something darker, sharper, more invigorating, like wildflowers in spring, and he felt it speed up his heart the same way it always did.

Holt knew what she wanted to hear. Her offer wasn’t a bad one, and she was right, he was lucky it was her who found him. Mira and Zoey would be gone soon. He needed to start thinking about survival again, not about his heart. Besides, as before, the truth was the truth.

“I never stopped thinking about you, either,” Holt said simply. The words came easily. Probably because they were true.

Ravan leaned in slowly, and the scent of her overwhelmed him. It was amazing how normal it felt, how easily her lips blended with his, how natural the heat of her felt against him in spite of all the time that had passed.

He felt Ravan’s fingers in his hand, felt her move his wrist above his head, as her mouth slowly played over his…

Then he heard a metallic click. Sharp metal dug into his right wrist.

Holt tried to pull away, but couldn’t. It was attached to the merry-go-round again. Holt saw the shiny metallic handcuff that connected him to the pole.

“Ravan, what—”

“I’ve been shot and stabbed, kicked and beaten, I’ve been burned by plasma fire, hell I even almost drowned this morning,” she said softly, just inches away. “I’ve been hurt by professionals, I’ve been hurt by my family, but when you hurt me, Holt, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. And it never went away, you know? It just… festered. And remained. That kind of hurt never heals—not really—it just dulls, just blends into the background until you think about it again, and then you feel it all over, same as before.” She stood up and stared down at him coldly now. “Let’s make it a game, what do you say? We’re going to Polestar, then farther after that. I figure there and back to Faust should take about a month. You have exactly that long to convince me you meant what you just said. If you do, I’ll speak to Tiberius for you.”

“Rae…”

“If not—well… why dwell on unpleasant things, yes?”

Holt angrily shook the handcuff above him, trying to pull it loose. It wouldn’t budge. “Ravan!”

She just smiled down at him. “Welcome home, Holt.” Then she moved off, disappearing into the mix of giant, twisting shadows and the firelight from the Menagerie camp.

THEY LEFT THE CARNIVAL at daybreak. There was no Vacuum to help them anymore. If they were going to cross into the third ring they’d have to pass through the Compactor, the Stable Anomaly that guarded the route to the other side.

Even though it was only a second-ring Anomaly, Mira hated the Compactor. It was a cube-shaped zone that generated two massive wavelike pulses of high gravity that raced forward and slammed into each other with an insane amount of force. The impact of the two waves created a thunderous, deafening sound, on par with a sonic boom, and you had to wear ear protection when you were as close as half a mile. If you were caught in the middle of it when the waves hit, well—there wasn’t much left. The horrible booming always filled her dreams for days after.

Her Lexicon confirmed what she remembered: The speed of the gravity waves were identical and always consistent. It was the time in between their “launch” that varied. Fortunately, it varied in a particular pattern, according to an equation. Each subsequent pulse came at an ever-decreasing interval, until that interval was zero. Then it all started over.

You had to time the initial pulse with a stopwatch, quickly determine when the next one would fire; then, if you had enough time, race over a length of ground the size of a football field to the other side before the gravity waves fired again and slammed into each other.

Mira felt sick when she finally gave the order to go, even though she’d figured the three previous pulse times correctly. She wished Ben had been there to do it, to be the one responsible. But he wasn’t. There was only her.

They all made it in one pass, dashing through in a mad scramble, Holt carrying Zoey, and Max streaming easily ahead of the Menagerie like it was all a game.

Miraculously, no one died. For the first time since the Grindhouse or the Ion Storm, no one had been killed on her watch. Again, Mira expected it to feel good or triumphant, but it still didn’t. If anything, she felt more anxious, knowing they hadn’t even faced the worst of what the Strange Lands had to throw at them.

Now they were in the third ring. Climbing a steep hill, northeast along a highway marked as South Dakota 20, and the line of Menagerie stretched back behind her. It was a little past noon, but the sky was as dark as dusk. Strange, bluish, swirling clouds filled the air, and the rolling landscape was like a checkerboard of overgrown vegetation and land stripped bare where Ion Storms had ravaged it over the years.