19 - The Towers

Fat drops of rain fell from the muted sky as they walked through the streets of East Yartha, already muddied and forming puddles in the dipping and buckled bricks. Byron's gift went seemingly unappreciated by the dour and silent officers of the Yarthanguard who flanked him. They took him across East Harpy Bridge in a slow march to the landmass in the Slybos River known as Arsenal Island, the central command post of the Yarthanguard where an imposing stone fortress dominated one side of the island, and the barracks, training grounds and various outbuildings the other. As its gates loomed ever closer, Byron was certain that he was being taken to the dungeons, but they didn’t stop there.

Past the gates they entered into the courtyard of the island grounds where under normal circumstances soldiers and recruits would be in their formations for first-session drills, but the Yarthanguard that morning were unorganized mobs. Byron saw no chain of command among them. Some were visibly drunk, among them a palpable rage. He could see that the Yarthanguard escorting him, older and more experienced than the decorumless soldiers that surrounded them in the yard, were nervous.

The current crop of low-ranking soldiers of the Yarthanguard were almost entirely lowborn men and women, tempted into service these past few years for little more than meals and shelter, now drunk on not just their first tastes of power but liquor as well, it seemed to Byron. From what he could see of the herded groups of commoners there, the new soldiers had not wielded that power responsibly. Likely to fold under pressure or switch sides if the tables turn, he thought as he observed them. They paid him and his company little mind as they passed.

The common folk shackled and chained before them were bloodied, frightened, and weeping, actively taunted and beaten by the unstable crowd of guards. Byron stole gawking looks back from his phalanx as they marched him down the road between the fortress and barracks. His captors spoke with other guards who told them that the prisoners were captured at Tabby Square, that the entire southwest quarter was in a state of rebellion.

On across the western section of Harpy Bridge his party traveled, and soon arrived at the banks of the Slybos and then the campus grounds and towers, where the air was tainted by dampened ash and acrid earth. The citizenry there were more ordered, but the presence among them was the same energy of disaster that had reigned at Arsenal Island, Endstown and Ironworks.

They climbed the steps to the entrance to Lordly Tower. The guards rushed him through the panic-stricken lower hall to a chamber in the back of the massive spire that smelled of the grease used to lubricate the pulleys of a wooden lift there. His shackles were removed, and he and the only two remaining guards boarded the old contraption. Chains buckled and the planks beneath them groaned. Byron had never been above the fifth floor, nor had he ever used the apparatus, and he was a bundle of frayed nerves.

His tics had turned manic- humming, soft laughter and harsh muttering. He ran his hands over the stubble of his bald head compulsively as their chariot climbed its stone shaft. “Are they going to kill me?” he asked the weary guards more than once, but they’d remained silent.

The lift groaned to a sudden stop on the fifteenth floor, and they exited at the northern wing of a cross-section of corridors where messengers came and went, some with cages of carrier pigeons- fluttering wings and tiny scrolls tied to their feet, messages destined to the far parts of the city. Byron wondered how many of those messages concerned him and his gift. They mean to protect me, to keep me safe, he thought. What other reason could they have to bring me here?

Lordly Tower was the seat of governor Albranth Wyse, son of Sara Wyse. Byron and the governor had even known each other as children, though they hadn’t spoken in years. If Yartha were still a monarchy, Albranth could have been a king, and his life was treated with such compensation by his family and upper echelons who had groomed him from birth to one day become a leader, regardless of title. He and Byron’s paths had strayed drastically in adolescence, though Byron was of course aware of Albranth’s ascent to the highest seat in Yartha.

The guards turned left at the cross to a long, tall-ceilinged hallway where they passed doors on each side to the one at the hallway’s end. It opened to an equally high-ceilinged, palatial decorated bedchamber and quarters. There he was told by servants to bathe and to change into fine garments already laid out for him, to wait for someone to speak with him, but he was not told who that would be.

Byron did what they’d asked of him without question, at the moment simply happy to be on the outside of a dungeon. The servants drew the water and left him, but he could hear the guards on the other side of the door in the hall uttering mundanity. After the bath he changed into fine, clean garments- a peach-colored doublet with a frilled shirt and tweed trousers.

He stood adjusting his articles in a tall, ornate mirror. His eyebrows were beginning to grow back, the stubble of his head already an illusion of hair. He left the bath chambers. The spacious living space was far from a dungeon cell. Against the far wall was a canopied bed fitted with linens of a deep crimson, beside it an arched doorway that led to the washroom and another that led to a kitchen. Tall windows lined the outer wall with a small alcove in the sitting area where a hexagonal table was sat. The window of the nook was the most grand- a grid framing of rectangular panes, thin, flawless, crystal-clear- the same pristine quality he’d seen in the observatory of the moon people. He could not believe it was a coincidence. Did we teach them, or did they teach us? he wondered. Was our renaissance just an adoption of their knowledge? A sham?

A large oil painting of a mountain hung adjacent the bed and above a fine oak dresser, and he was not entirely shocked when it came to him that the painting was a landscape of Mt. Omni- the Highlands of Magaia. Of course they know, he thought. He could picture an easel positioned atop one of the hills that bowed before the behemoth mountains, the black and white towers atop them. For all he knew, the artist had been a moon person. He knew then that his secret was not a secret to them, and a small ache of disappointment filled him.

He strolled over to the sitting area next to the rain-spotted windows where three velvet upholstered chairs were situated around the hexagonal table. He sat down, feeling truly clean for the first time in months. The windows laid out a dreary panorama of the academy campus and the castles and mansions northward. There was a gas lamp on the table and next to it a wooden bowl filled with grapes. He plucked and ate them as he paced and gazed out the rain-blurred windows, ravenous, oblivious to the last thing he’d put in his stomach. He picked the bunch clean, tossed the vine back in the bowl, and sat down in one of the high-backed chairs as he looked out at the gloom.

The temple bells hadn’t rung at all that day, he realized, and the room didn’t have a clock, but some hours after he’d been brought there the chamber door opened again, and Gaspar Spyre, the governor of Ryli Tower, came into the room with a downturned, scowling face, his clothes spotted with rain. His bushy black eyebrows and white beard were unmistakable. His eyes did not meet Byron’s as he approached the table and turned back a hooded cloak with fur trimming draped over a belted tunic. He wore traveling pants and gold buckled boots- a strange assortment of clothes that looked to Byron as if they had been thrown together hastily. On one of his shoulders hung the messenger bag that had been taken from Byron at Hundred Trees. Inside was presumably the journal of the witch Petrastyra, and his notes. On Gaspar’s other shoulder was a similar bag of finer quality- his own, Byron assumed.

Behind him was Albranth, dry and composed. He wore a frilled white shirt over his broad chest, and an assortment of gold necklaces and jeweled rings. He was olive-skinned and tall, handsome, with a square, clean-shaven jaw. Young for a governor, Byron’s age of twenty-three.

Byron almost expected the remaining three governors to come filing in behind them but the guardsman in the hallway closed the door to the chamber. Still not meeting Byron’s eyes, Gaspar Spyre tossed the old, mud-caked bag onto the table.

Albranth gave Byron a polite nod. “Sit,” he said. “We have much to discuss, and not much time in which to discuss it.”

The three took their places, Byron sitting last.

“We’ve pieced together much of it,” Albranth said, “Well, Gaspar has. We’d like you to tell us exactly what happened in Magaia. I’m sure you will have questions as well, and we’ll do our best to answer them, though you must realize that time is of the essence.” He frowned, taking in a severe breath. “I must be blunt,” he said. “There are questions which need to be addressed immediately.”

Gaspar spoke then, an old lecturer, as he finally met Byron’s eyes. “First question- Byron Levant, are you in league with these rebels, or do you sympathize with them in any way?” he asked, wrinkled eyes squinting, searching the face across from him. “That will not stand, if so,” he added.

Byron’s eyes widened. “Absolutely not,” he pleaded without hesitation. “I had no knowledge of their treacherous plots.” He lifted his chin and his eyes blinked in rapid succession. “I am a proud Yarthan. A loyal Yarthan. I took an oath on these very grounds pledging my everlasting devotion to the Towers. You were there, sirs, though you may not remember me. I was but one of many new graduates of our prestigious academy on that day, which I say without pretense is the proudest day of my life.” His face changed then to meet Gaspar’s scowl. “I can’t believe those foul, traitorous dogs. The Towers extend a loving hand. We strive for equal footing, a dissolution of the classes that have plagued us for so long, and how do the lowborn respond? They bite, bite, bite. Just like vermin. They-”

Gaspar dismissed him with an impatient hand. “No time, or need, for empty platitudes, or whatever it is that you think that you are doing. Whatever you were plotting ends now, and that is that. The next question is the one that truly matters. To me, anyway.” He fixed his gaze on Byron, then spoke with grave importance. “Aside from the rain wyrm, and the fungi which I found hidden in your bag and has since been destroyed, did you bring anything else back with you from Magaia? Flora, fauna, insects. Anything.”

Byron’s face was drained of color. “My own intuition made me aware of such dangers, of course. No, I was very, very careful. He winced. “The mushroom, it slipped my mind. Things have been moving very fast, you see. Look outside at the rain I have brought to our ravaged countryside! I simply followed the instructions as written. From the book in that satchel.” He gestured eagerly at the bag on the table.

“Not true,” Albranth said.

Byron froze, half-whispering, “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t undergo the transformation,” Albranth said. “Who did?”

“Oh, yes.” Byron finally said, and hoped they did not notice the relief that washed over him, or the cold sweat that broke out on his brow, though he imagined he had made a very audible sigh. “He was a funny little fellow,” he continued, as if reminiscent of a fond acquaintance. “Went by the name of Varnabas, he did. I tricked him into drinking that disgusting thing. I didn’t believe that he would, though.” He smiled, water brimming in his eyes, and put a trembling hand over his face. “I… I would perhaps take that back if I could. I would not do that again if I could do it all over, which I cannot, obviously.” He stared, frozen. “The transformation seemed to cause the fellow great discomfort.” Sweat dripped into his eyes. “Before he passed away.”

The looks on the governor's faces were akin to revulsion. Byron laughed softly, his head swam, and he wiped his face with the sleeve as he continued to talk. Tears rolled from his eyes as he spoke. “He was an anonymous drunkard,” Byron said, matter-of-factly, his face occasionally ticking to a rictus of grief. “His life had been taken by the liquor long ago. He was past the point of rehabilitation. A walking corpse. You must understand, I had to retain my senses in order to study him.” His voice warbled as it rose- “Oh, how I hope he is enjoying his new life. Mayhap the poor soul has conquered his struggle with the demon drink in the metaphorical rebirth he has found in the void. It must be metaphorical, you see. He seemed quite dead the last time I saw him. A true sacrifice. He was a… brave… I’m so sorry. I…” his lip trembled, “I am not evil,” he finished, and then broke down into tears.

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The governors looked at one another. Gaspar spoke, his frail voice all but disappeared, now the lecturer. “I’ve just come from Hundred Trees,” he said. “and the massacre you left us there. The guards have arrested dozens of members of a cult which you amassed and cultivated, and not a single one of them is loyal to the Towers, or to you, apparently. They say that they watched you disappear into white flames, which means that they heard you utter the summoning words. Look at me.”

Byron did, his face a mask of some catastrophic grief as Gaspar continued, unswayed. “You have let loose a secret that the lords of Yartha have managed to keep for half a millennium. Tell us everything, and I mean every gods’ damned detail, or I will personally give you over to the mob that congregates at our doorstep. They will burn you alive,” he said, a smile touching his dry lips. “That’s what they do to evil mages, you know.”

Albranth spoke. “Byron, we are here to decide whether or not you are a good mage or an evil one.” He made a motion between him and Gaspar. “That is what is happening right now. Light and Dark. At this stage there is no in-between.” His mouth was drawn a straight line, and Byron saw in his eyes that Albranth was serious.

“I have nothing to hide!” Byron shrieked, verging on further tears as rain pattered at the windows and. sweat ran from his face. He muttered something unintelligible and massaged his bald scalp with long, bony fingers, his quivering mouth seemingly in a battle to hold back the nervous noises that threatened to escape from it.

Gaspar turned to Albranth and laughed, short and cruel. “He’s a strange one, all right,” he muttered, and lifted a pair of spectacles to his face and unbuckled the latch to Byron's old bag, taking from it the box that held the witch’s journal. He dropped it on the table with a clack, loud in the tall-ceilinged chamber, and pushed the box sliding toward him. “Where did you find this?” he said.

Byron looked back and forth at Gaspar and Albranth, temper flaring. “You are the liars!” he shouted, suddenly slapping both palms on the table and standing at his full height. The chair shot backward. “You know! You’ve known all along, and you led us all to believe that it was a fairytale! An entire plane of existence at our fingertips and you, you! You made me look foolish!”

“Sit down,” Albranth said.

Gaspar turned his head and spat on the floor, then looked up at Byron. “You are foolish!” he shouted. “You are moronic! Thanks to you and your complete disregard for the safety of Yartha, the entire city is aware of Magaia. Of magic. It is a grave, grave responsibility for one to hold. A clueless, overgrown child is unfit for the life it demands. Has your only trip to that world already cracked your mind? Are you that fragile? This business requires great fortitude. You will be eaten alive a half-mile into the Highlands in your sniveling state. You have no idea how dangerous this is, or how dangerous the implications of your recklessness have already been. Now answer me. Where did you find this?”

Byron sat back down into the velvet cushioned chair, rested his arms on the table and lowered his head with a curious smile. “The stacks,” he said softly.

“What?” Gaspar scoffed, a look of pure offense written on his face.

Peals of mad laughter erupted from Byron. He tried to stifle them, poorly. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, and sat back down, laughing uninhibited. His eyes reflected the tiny flames of the candelabra. “I found that book in the common stacks of Ryli Library,” he reiterated. “Directly beneath your tower, I do believe. Perhaps you should have kept better track of it.”

Albranth, who had been silent, cast a shocked look at him and began to say something, but Gaspar slowly stood until his palms rested on the table as well and his long white beard dangled over the surface between. “Do you forget your rank?” he growled. Your lack of rank? You are speaking with governors of the greatest city on Damursyn. You. A fucking math professor, and a terrible one at that.” He shook his fists at his sides, color rising in his whiskered cheeks. “Are you begging for the dungeons, Levant? Begging for death? Are you a murderous lunatic like your grandfather, a worthless bootlicker like your father, or, are you something worse? This act of yours is tiresome, and if it is not an act then I pity what you are. Do not forget who you are talking to and don’t think you are anything but expendable.”

Though his features were wrinkled and weathered, his eyes were full of fire, and his mind and tongue were still sharp. “I am neither,” Byron said, his voice wavering, entirely too late. “I am not my father or my grandfather. I am Byron Cecil Levant.”

“We’ll have the library scoured again,” Albranth said offhandedly, “and we’ll send guards to Altar Cave just to be certain.” His tone was maddeningly casual to Byron, still seething.

Albranth turned his attention back to him, laced his gold-ringed hands on the table. “Your father can’t save you from this, you know,” he said solemnly. “You face a huge number of accusations, Byron. We are willing to forgive, but only so far.” He cleared his throat. “Yartha is close to a… breaking point,” he said. “A mass rebellion is underway as we speak. It will need to be quelled. Now is the time for complete loyalty and truthfulness. You answer our questions, and we’ll try to answer yours, but you must understand that Magaia is still largely a mystery to us, too.”

“Does my father know about the existence of this world?”

“I suppose he does now.”

“Did he before?”

“I don’t know, Byron.”

“How many of us are there? Mages?” he asked eagerly.

Gaspar, who’d left to gaze at the city from the windows, came back to the table and sat down, muttering something unintelligible. Albranth tapped his rings on the table. “Go on,” Gaspar told him. “Answer a few questions for the sniveling little shit. If he is a good mage, he will need to know these things anyway, and if he is evil then our words will go nowhere but to his grave.”

Albranth spoke, “We don’t know how many of you there are, but there are not many, and less and less over time. The first council of the academy were all mages. That changed over time as fewer were born, but all three governors of Ryli Tower were mages. It is still that way. Gaspar is a warlock. Aside from you, he is one of very few able to summon the white flame.”

Gaspar grinned at Byron from his seat at the table, leaned over, and spat on the floor yet again. “Are you coming to realize that you are not as important as you fancy yourself, boy?” he taunted. “It must be difficult for one who believes they are the center of the universe.” He turned back to the window and Byron scowled in his direction

Albranth continued. “Historically, there have been more witches than warlocks, more women than men who carry the trait, but both are rare in our time. We don’t know why. Once, there were many. But at this moment in time, the Towers are only aware of you, Gaspar, and one other. This was foretold by a prophecy in the faith of the Water Goddess, Slybbon, if you are not aware. It foretold of a thinning of the herd among mages, and claims that when only two remain, a battle between the gods in both Gaia and Magaia will commence, helmed by a betrayer and ended by an upholder, a follower of Earth and a follower of Water. The thinning has already happened, and soon enough there will be only two mages that The Towers know of.”

Gaspar sat back down and Albranth smiled. “Though Gaspar here is probably the toughest old man I’ve ever made acquaintance with, age and death will come for us all. Barring accidents or any number of other unforeseen factors that could complicate their prophecy, that will soon leave two.”

“I am aware of the prophecy,” Byron said. He laughed and shook his head. “People seem to think that I’m the evil one in that coincidental fable, though it is obviously the drunk brute of a woman. Evil if I have ever seen it.”

Albranth was visibly startled. Byron saw he’d caught his attention. When Albranth spoke again it was softer, more like the voice Byron remembered from their childhood. “Alma,” he said.

“Who? The muscled lunk of a woman with the mouth of wooden teeth? Yes, I have met her, unfortunate for me. She was a donor for the ritual. She threatened me! She can’t possibly be the only other mage?”

He shook his head. “You don’t remember her, though? Byron, she was head guard of Lordly Tower during my father’s tenure. She hardly left his side.”

Byron tried to recall her, and when he did he realized. He pictured the tall, muscled woman always with Teller Wyse. A jolly idiot, he’d thought her. She was thinner then, and sober, but it was the same drunk woman who’d threatened him at Glass Avenue. “Of course,” he exclaimed. “Time and the bottle has ravaged the poor soul as it has so many others in our wicked city, but you are right.”

“Yes,” Albranth said. “That is her.”

“A drunken wretch all the same,” Byron spat. “Evil as I’ve ever seen. She knew the old man. Probably the one who introduced him to his addiction. I was having her followed, but I lost contact with my man after being taken prisoner. Why is she not being questioned? She could be the betrayer, or a valuable asset. Why let her wander the streets threatening people?”

“I don’t need to give you a reason,” Albranth said, sitting up. “She has earned her freedom, and I’ll not have you slander her name, or to make presumptions as to why you are truly here. Your insolence may have been allowed somewhere else, but it won’t be allowed here. We will not interfere with Alma Bryde’s life any more than we already have.” He lowered his head. “The truth is that she saved my life, and she tried her damndest to save my mother and father’s.”

“From elders fever?” Byron asked, a look of confused disgust on his face. “What are you talking about? Is she a cleric, too?”

“They did not die from elders fever.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Byron asked him.

a low rumble of thunder rattled the tower windows in their frames.

“There could be other mages living in Magaia, as well,” Gaspar said. “It is older than our world, and we’ve been visiting there since time immemorial. Lineages have been started there, you understand, but their humans are strange. They have no empires, a good many of them are half-mad, but some of them are blessed. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. The things that rule Magaia- those that fight over it such as the moon people- they are not gods in the way we’ve previously thought gods to be. For one, they die as easily as any other thing. If there are any gods at all, they are whatever built the pedestals, and we don’t know exactly who or what that was. Silverfolk, some say. Guardians of Time, and unlike the other elemental races. Magaia is not an answer, I’m afraid. Only a deep well full of more questions.”

“Then I will answer them if I live,” Byron said quietly. “I promise you that.” He was so enrapt in their words that he’d stopped fidgeting.

“That’s enough of your questions,” Gaspar said. “Now, you answer ours.”

***

Of all his variations on the tale he’d told so far, the version he gave governors Wyse and Spyre had been the closest to the actual truth, though of course he’d told them that the rain wyrm was gifted to him without reciprocity. Halfway through the recounting he was able to keep his strange mannerisms controlled. The logical part of his mind was awakened by the calm and he’d spoken eloquently, he thought. Still the hands in his lap had fidgeted.

The two of them sat in silence for a moment before Gaspar spoke. “The moon people were friendly with you, then?”

“Friendly enough. That is a lowborn expression. Isn’t it delightful?” Byron said. Albranth and Gaspar shared a guarded glance. Albranth handed Byron his handkerchief and he used it again to pat delicately at his face, beaded with sweat. “Who are they? The moon people?” Byron asked them. “How do they know our language? What are their motives?”

“That is a long history we don’t have time for at the moment. We’ve already talked for too long.” There was a loud knock on the door that startled both Byron and Albranth, but Gaspar nodded. “See?” he asked them, turned his head toward the door and shouted, “What is it?”

A voice of restrained panic from the other side, “Governors, I apologize for the intrusion the guildmasters are waiting,”

“No need.” Gaspar said, and nodded at Albranth. “We’re finished.” He stood and the other governor did as well. Gaspar turned to Byron and gave him a withering look. “You’ve been deemed a sniveling shit,” he said, and took the journal of the witch in his own messenger bag and tossed Byron’s notes onto the table. “You will discuss Magaia with no one until we have time to converse again, which will be as soon as we are able. Take a look at the collection of texts on the penultimate level of Ryli Tower. I believe you’ll find them very enlightening. They may perhaps take that last struggling bit of your sanity. One can only hope, for there must be some kind of punishment for a mass murderer, or we may as well go pillaging with the rest of them, don’t you think? I’ve assigned high scholar Taliya Silverstream to fill you in on the details. She is very knowledgeable. Please treat her with respect. If you are capable of such a thing,” he finished, and left without another word.

Albranth put a light hand on Byron’s shoulder. “These are your new quarters,” he told him. “You’ve been appointed servants and guards. You are to be made a high scholar, but are not to attend council meetings, not yet, nor are you to leave this tower. Be on your best behavior and await further instructions.”

He gave the unresponsive Byron an unsure nod, then left him sitting there alone at the hexagonal table. After they'd gone, the slack-jawed look of incredulity on Byron’s face slowly turned to a beatific smile, a twinkling in his eyes. His luck had not run out, after all. Not yet.