J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“These Assembly are not like the one here now.” Gideon pointed toward Ambassador. “Their goals do not align with ours. They know the Prime is close to the Tower. They will try and stop her from entering, they will try to claim her for their own, but they will not succeed.” Gideon’s sightless stare swept over the multitude one last time. “Break camp. Form the caravan. Prepare yourselves. The cycle we have waited for begins this day.”

Cheers erupted again, Lancets pounding and spraying hosts of multicolored sparks that lit up the darkened landscape. Even Avril and Dane looked at each other with anticipation and eagerness.

“Strength! Strength! Strength! Strength!” The chant filled the air.

Holt, Mira, and Ravan stared at each other with uncertainty. Zoey buried her head in Holt’s back and shut her eyes, trying to drown out the loud chants and the world, as it shook all around her.

HOLT WATCHED THE CITY break down around him, and it wasn’t a delicate process. Tents broke loose from the walls and fell to the canyon floor below, in heaps of fabric. The effort continued on the ground, the Helix swarming over the tents and structures like ants, methodically and efficiently disassembling everything at once. It looked like it would be done within hours, but one question still remained. How did they transport it? It would be a monumental feat to carry everything that made up this place.

The small bridge Gideon sat on earlier was broken into three separate pieces near the flowing river, stacked in front of the strange phone booth from before, the only thing in the entire camp that, so far, had yet to be touched.

Seconds later Holt saw why. There was a loud groaning as someone opened the rusted, glass door. The gray, sparkling storm that had been swirling inside the thing erupted outward, but it didn’t dissipate in the air or explode or even expand. Instead, there was a deep, muted thump of sound as the energy rearranged itself into a perfect circle of dim light that swirled like a pinwheel, around and around in the air.

The pieces of the bridge began to move forward, pulled by some unseen force. As Holt watched, they lifted up into the air and flew straight into the wavering energy field, disappearing in flashes and loud thumps that filled the canyon and then were gone.

Holt’s eyes widened.

A line of White Helix began to march toward the phone booth, carrying the tents and structures, and, one by one, threw them into the spinning gray field. They must be able to place the pieces and parts of their city inside that energy, reseal it all back in the phone booth, then transport it. It was an ingenious system—and a frightening one. What would happen if a person were sucked inside that thing?

“Does it make you nervous?” a low, intense voice asked. Dane stood next to him, staring at the strange, spinning circle of energy.

“Everything in this place makes me nervous,” Holt said back.

Dane didn’t reply with the dripping sarcasm Holt expected. Instead, he merely nodded. “It’s not like it is for Freebooters, coming here. There’s no training before you step into the Strange Lands. You have to find the White Helix on your own. It’s a test, and many don’t survive it.”

Holt studied Dane. He wasn’t sure what the point of this conversation was, but he listened anyway. He didn’t have any desire to antagonize the guy.

“I made it halfway through the first ring before I saw anything out of place,” Dane continued. “Two Landships, crashed and burning next to each other. Wind Traders never come into the Strange Lands. Must have gone off-course or tried to lose some Assembly gunships, but, either way, it was a bad idea. They ran right into a Phase Field. You know what that is?”

Holt shook his head.

“Neither did I then.” Dane still didn’t look at him, his words slow and thoughtful. “Nastiest Anomaly in the first ring. Make anything passing through them intangible for a second or two. Sounds harmless enough, until you figure that being intangible means you sink straight into whatever you’re standing on. Roof of a building, hood of a car, even the ground. And then, when the field vanishes—you reform inside solid matter.”

Holt winced at that last part.

“Ships were all merged and blended together, it didn’t even look real,” Dane recalled. “Dumb kid that I was, I went inside, slipped in where one of the hulls had split, but I only took a few steps before I saw the legs. Hanging down from the ceiling where their owners had fallen through the top deck and reformed. Just legs. Still in jeans, still wearing shoes. Torsos were up top, no doubt, on the other side, but I wasn’t about to go check. My curiosity was kind of gone at that point. Never felt fear like that before. Real fear. Like ice in your veins. I almost turned around, headed back to Freezone, but I didn’t. I kept going, not sure how. For years, you know, I saw those legs hanging from that ceiling. Every time I slept. Every time I didn’t have anything else to think about. It’s why I drove myself so hard. Kept myself so occupied I didn’t have time for nightmares. Then I met Avril. Somehow, I don’t know, she took it away. She made it stop. I think it was because she gave me something else to focus on. I’m probably not making much sense.”

“Actually, you are.” Holt thought of his sister, Emily, the weight he’d carried for so long, and how Mira and Zoey had helped take it away. It was as Dane had said, they’d given him something else to focus on, too.

“Good,” Dane replied. “Then you understand what she means to me. Why… I reacted the way I did. With you.”

Dane had already apologized to him for what occurred back at the gym, but that had been at Avril’s command. What he’d just said now was probably the closest thing to a real apology Holt would ever get, which was fine. He didn’t need one to begin with. “I get it.”

The two of them stood there silently, watching the line of Helix tossing pieces of Sanctum into the swirling energy field, and then Dane turned and left as silently as he’d come.

“Just making friends all over the place, aren’t you?” Ravan studied him from behind with a dry look.

Holt studied her back. His feelings, where she was concerned, were a conflicted batch now, but he was still glad she was safe. “You’re the one here to take Avril away. If he’s looking to put the hurt on anyone, it’s you.”

“That places him at the end of a very long line,” Ravan said, “and if I were you, I’d be more worried about Avril finding out who pulled the trigger on her brother.”

“Well, I don’t intend to tell her. Do you?”

“Don’t know,” Ravan said with a smile. “Depends on how nice you are to me on the way back to Faust.”

Holt frowned, started walking instead of continuing the conversation. But, of course, he sensed Ravan next to him. “That deal was made when you had me tied up,” he said.

“A deal’s a deal, and I always have more rope. Found inventive uses for it before, I’m sure you remember.”

Holt, in fact, did recall. Vividly. His face reddened. “Ravan…”

“Oh no, look at that,” she said with mock concern. “I’ve embarrassed him… and I wasn’t even trying.” She liked getting under his skin, making him squirm. Sometimes it had been attractive. Other times not.

Holt tried to shift the conversation. “What do you think of this place?”

“I think it’s all silly. More silly even than that crazy Freebooter city in the sky. Bunch of kids, holed up back here for no reason I can see.”

“The Tone doesn’t affect them as much. You notice that? That’s probably one reason,” Holt said.