The story so far…
Jem ran away to the mythical city on the opposite bank of Alinakard. A city no-one has ever returned from, that burns every night and reappears each dawn. Jem’s father, Magnate Diamous, has forced her lover, Lilian, and the City Guard, Kinley to retrieve Jem from that cursed place. The problem is, no one can escape the city’s time loop and no one can truly die, either. Lilian has just finished the third challenge of a fight court with a motley crew of soldiers whilst her friends are breaking into Gowan’s tower. You can read last week’s post here, or start from the beginning with The City On The Other Side.
I have added links at the bottom of each post that will jump you straight to the next chapter until you end up back here.
“Are you sure about this?” Jem’s eyebrows were pinched together and she had backed away during Kinley’s work, to the very top of the stairs, in case his enthusiasm might infect her.
Kinley tugged on the makeshift rope. He had disassembled Jem’s woven picnic basket and turned it into a swing, looping it over one of the tower’s roof struts. The basket’s leather shoulder straps twirled at the bottom as a forlorn stirrup, the metal buckles glinting in the sun.
“I reckon it will hold one of us,” he replied, scratching his chin.
“Me, you mean.”
“Well, you’re lighter than me an’ you’re not injured, so yeah. I’ve done this before. There’s nothin’ to it.”
“And if you’re wrong, I fall sixty feet to the ground and spend the rest of eternity with broken bones.”
“Yeah, true. Look, try hanging on it with all your weight whilst we are over the landing. If it gives, you’ll bump to the ground. Then - when it works- I’ll swing you out, around the side. There’s gotta be a window round there.”
“I hope you are right.”
It took a few tries, with Jem flailing around the landing like a drunken bee, but Finley finally managed to swing her into space, around the building’s curve. The rope stayed taunt and he heard muffled cursing, followed by the crash and tinkle of glass.
Three minutes later, he heard the door locks snap back, protesting loudly at the movement before the metal panels thumped and wiggled sideways. As it inched open, a shower of dirt dislodged from the top and sides of the door.
Jem stood inside, nursing a cut on her hand. Her breeches were stained with an odd green powder. There was more dirt piled up against the inside of the door and beyond her, an overturned table by the window.
“This place is a mess,” she said without preamble. “Pass the med-tin, please.”
Kinley handed over her pack, with the tin sticking out at the top. He grabbed the remainder of their provisions and bundled them up in his jacket before sliding through the opening behind her. Jem frowned at him as he located and wedged a half-rotten book into the door frame.
“It was hard enough to get it open in the first place,” she exclaimed. “It’s not going to close without a serious push.”
“We’re in a magical place,” Kinley snapped back. “Assume nothing, take everything with you and be prepared to run.”
“Yeah, the old Padfoot code. I thought you might be from the borderlands, from your accent. How’d you end up in Alinakard?”
Kinley grimaced. “I wanted a change of pace. Locking up gates an’ guiding tourists seemed a nice, peaceful job. It was an unlucky night meetin’ you.”
Jem chuckled, without humour. “You’d be surprised how many people say that about me.” She glanced about the room, Kinley following her gaze. It had once been a workroom with the remains of a daybed, a desk, a few books and the overturned table that had contained bottles, glasses and an empty inkwell. Birds had nested in the daybed’s frame and their droppings covered the floor.
To their right-hand side, just by the door, was a sunken stairwell with a decorative, upright handrail.
Kinley looked back at Jem. “Gotta hand-light?”
“Yes, but that balustrade looks rotten.”
Kinley stepped forward and prodded the first step with his foot.
“It’s stone, mimicking the steps outside the tower. Probably built from the same slab, pushed through the wall. We’ll be fine. C’mon. We’re here because of you. Stop bein’ a chicken.”
The floor below was a macabre library. One half contained hand-stitched books, clay tablets and scrolls, filling up the shelves. The other side was a mosaic of bones and skulls that flicked in the dancing light. Jem strayed close to the shelves.
“Anything interesting?” Kinley enquired.
“Old Empire script,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t read it.”
“Keep going then.”
The next two floors contained a bedroom, washroom and kitchen area. A few robes hung on hooks like cobwebs, long abandoned by moths. The bed was a frame on the floor and the copper pots were hollow and dusty. Jem tapped one, chinking her ring on it’s surface.
“In a place where nothing dies, this tower is dead,” she said ruefully. “I was expecting more.”
Kinley snorted. “Monsters an’ treasure?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s never as good as the stories make out. The nightmares last longer than the wounds, which last longer than the money. I prefer boring. You can live with boring.”
They kept walking down. As Jem descended into the final room, something lit up, blinding their eyes with unexpected light.
“Sturm-snakes!” Kinley complained, wiping away his tears. He grasped the small pistol tucked in his belt and edged down, bumping into Jem at the bottom. She was gazing at the light source in the centre of the room, an illuminated strip that danced in and out of the metal gears and rods to create an infinity loop. The whole contraption looked like a sculpture, except every section was moving in a seamless dance of give-and-take.
“What is it?” Kinley asked, awed.
“It’s a Perpetual Machine!” Jem whispered back, horrified. “I’ve read about them as a thought experiment but I didn’t think they were real.”
“Can we stop it?”
“Only if you are feeling suicidal. That light in the middle isn’t really light. It’s time. If we disturb the calibration, the machine explodes. You have to be insanely precise just to get it to work in the first place.”
*
Back at the fight court, Lilian was facing almost the same dilemma.
“They must’ve fallen in there with the demon,” she said slowly, as though she were talking to a drunk. “They risked everything to help us. We need to help them.”
The remainder of her squad stared at the deep hole that now covered the arena, then back at her, as though she were mad.
“If we don’t go now, we’ll get trapped again,” said the nearest soldier. He had been clawed across the face, with a livid stripe decorating his right eyelid. Lilian tried to recall his name. Saul, or Samen, or something. He half-heartedly waved at the ghouls on the ground. “They’re not going to stay down forever.”
Indeed, one or two of them were inching their way up, reaching for furniture- or other undead- to support them.
Lilian shrugged. “Run for the gates, then,” she said. “Good luck with the rest of your life. But I’m not leaving Afizere behind. I can’t betray anyone else.”