Gravity's Revenge (15 page)

A cracking rumble made her glance behind. A garnet the size of a boulder was tumbling down the stair.
They must’ve pried it from my finger.
The pointed pavilion side of the jewel flipped and slammed into a step, splintering stone. The gem tipped toward her. Hiresha saw herself reflected purple in the main facet of the garnet. In the glassy surface she appeared small, rooted in place.

It won’t end like this. It won’t.
The enchantress threw herself to the side, sliding off the stair but clinging to the edge. Her legs dangled in a soothing wetness of oblivion.

The garnet smashed its way past her, gashing and breaking the steps. It bounced once more then fell off the end of the stair.

Hiresha pulled herself upright. She sprinted downward, she skidded, and she slipped over crumbling steps. She reached the end, where the garnet had fallen, and she leapt.

16

Dream Laboratory

Hiresha gazed down at her hands. Three jewels were missing from her right, three holes between her second and third knuckles that dribbled blood onto her palm. As she watched, a fourth jewel winked out of sight. In one laboratory mirror, another garnet tumbled down the stone stair.

Her yellow-gowned reflection banged on the silver-plated glass. “We have to get away with Lord Black Toes and—”

“You must promise them the death of Tethiel.” The Feaster had one hand pressed on the glass enclosing her, five black gems splayed over the translucent surface. Her scowl would have turned a tea cake to dust. “Promise them anything to make them stop.”

“I am surprised,” Hiresha said to the Feaster, “that you would overlook an opportunity to do injury to a Bright Palm. Find me ways to incapacitate them.”

The corners of the lady’s lips curled into a smile of red spines.

Hiresha turned to her reflection. “Search for the most likely path of escape.”

“Oh, yes, yes.” The reflection worried her hands together, bending down to study a model of the
Recurve
Tower
. “But we haven’t much time.”

“Too true,” Hiresha said. Even in the lucid dream’s rushing torrent of knowingness, she had only minutes before the Bright Palms removed more jewels in the waking world. “I have much enchanting to do.”

Levitating at the center of the basalt room, she swept her left hand—the one not yet violated—toward the shelves circling her. The glowing baubles inside were the mental representations of her spells, and she Attracted a round bloodstone and a platinum clamp.

The items zoomed to within grasp then hovered in the air. Hiresha channeled power through them, and thousands of paired Attraction spells shut the bleeding veins in her fingers. She bound the enchantment within the red diamond in her chest. Only the gem’s largest facet was visible, surrounded by skin, a rose-tinted triangle pointing upward.

“Can’t let them take our diamond,” the reflection said.

“Are you ready for an idea?” the lady Feaster asked.

“That you stole from my mind,” Hiresha said. “Very well. Is it good?”

“Not for the Bright Palm carving at you.”

“Perfect. Show me.”

Mirrors whirled closer to her, and they revealed the room in the Owl’s Hall as she had last seen it. Herself slumped on the chair, brazier glittering with heat, snow puffing against the outside of the window panes then pushed away by Repulsion enchantments in the crystal. The Bright Palms were shadows, fogs of probability. Two smears of darkness congealed into man-like forms on either side of her as she felt herself being straightened in the chair and held. The figures represented her suspicion that two men had clamped hands on her shoulders, though it could have been but one.

“The third Bright Palm is probably crouching in front of you,” the Feaster said. “Now look past him.”

The jewels of her discarded gown shone like multicolored embers within the mirror. Hiresha’s bond with those stones allowed her to sense their precise locations. They had been thrown in front of the window, to be soon cast out, she was sure. As fortune would have it, they were behind the third Bright Palm.

“An ill twist in his fate,” Hiresha said.

As she envisioned a spell, it manifested in a mirror. The jewels in the gowns were torn lose from the fabric—diamonds, rubies, onyx, opals—all hurling toward Hiresha, pulled by an Attraction of terrible force. The gems would pierce the Bright Palm, followed by a barrage of gold wire.

“We hate to ruin the gowns.” The reflection was running her fingers over the bent top of the model
Recurve
Tower
. “They survived the Bright Palm’s violence. And our amethyst gown is in there.”

“Better them ruined than the Academy,” Hiresha said.

She faced the gowns in the mirror then closed her hands together. Jewels that had orbited her in the dream laboratory now gathered between her palms. She molded their power into the Attraction spell that would puncture the Bright Palm hundreds of times over. The magic vibrated and pulsed in front of her, seen in the dream as a fistful of jewels. She set the enchantment to resolve as soon as she woke.

“A heart full of diamonds is more than a Bright Palm deserves,” the Feaster said. “Don’t forget to slow down any jewels that miss him.”

“The projectiles that come too close to me will be indeed Lightened to a standstill.” Hiresha rotated her hand, adding a ring of dream emeralds as a new layer to the spell.

She could not help but notice the fifth and final garnet embedded in her right hand disappear. A thought staunched the bleeding.

The Feaster folded her jewel-studded hands over each other. “Not much time left. Attract the fox’s collar. If you slip it onto a Bright Palm, he won’t be able to follow. He’ll be yanked back toward the bracelet which they’ve already stripped from you.”

“No!” The reflection cried out. “We want Lord Black Toes to be safe.”

“I’ll carry him. Right now I need every tool at hand.” Hiresha gestured to a mirror showing the fennec fox bounding around the chair. His collar of purple gemstones dangled around his neck, loose after she undid its Attraction enchantment. A ray of shimmering light connected his jewelry to an opal held motionless between the mirror and Hiresha. The gem’s spell would Attract the fox’s collar—
Hopefully along with the fennec—
to her as she woke.

The reflection gave out a shrieking whimper, clutching at her heart. Before Hiresha could think to chide her for oversensitivity, she felt the red diamond shift in her chest. It felt like a knife blade scraping at her soul.

“They’re trying to pry it out.” The Feaster snapped the swaths of her twilight gown, her face bending into the expression of a roaring lioness. “Enchant the last gems. Now.”

Hiresha leaped to the mirror that showed herself sleeping in the room. She plunged a hand into the glass, feeling as if she reached into thick water. Her fingers stretched toward the garnets fallen to the rug amid dark speckles, and she Attracted the jewels toward her sleeping form. One gem would not budge.

“He’s standing on it,” she said. “I have to make do with four.”

Lifting the right hand of her unconscious self like a puppet, Hiresha directed the garnets to fall between her fingers. The Bright Palms would see the gems zipping into her grasp, but they would only have a second to react.

“Lightening enchantments are more practical,” she said, “so three of those. One Attraction, more forgiving to aim.”

She shredded the magical scripts previously in the garnets. Passing them to her left hand would prime their enchantments, since those fingers retained their implanted gems, for the moment. Preferably the garnet projectiles would enchant whatever she threw them at, but her accuracy while awake left something to be desired.

Having made hundreds such enchantments before, she crafted these four in less time than it took the jewels to twinkle in the waking world. Within the garnets winked motes of green, yellow, and red light.

“We have to go through the window.” The reflection pointed to another mirror, to where snow swirled against crystal panes.

“I’m wearing only lingerie.” Hiresha was still elbow-deep in the mirror, and she tapped her sleeping body on her bare shoulder. “They even tore off my jeweled slippers. Setting aside everything else for the moment, I can hardly walk barefoot over the snow like Sheamab.”

“They might hesitate to leap out after us. It’s our best chance.”

“Your time for napping is done. Look.” The Feaster pointed to the mirror, where the red diamond floated out of the sleeping Hiresha’s chest. Tendrils of darkness seemed to drag it through the air. The Bright Palms were trying to take Tethiel’s gift from her.

Hiresha closed her fist over the diamond. “When I awake, everything begins.”

“Take care of Lord Black Toes,” the reflection said.

“Good hunting,” the Feaster said.

Hiresha’s eyes blinked closed in the dream. They opened in the Lands of Loam.

17

Out the Window

The red diamond flew into Hiresha’s wounded hand.

The Bright Palm in front of her still had three fingers pinched together where he had been holding the jewel. His other hand gripped the knife. He stood at the sound of ripping gowns. Waking had unleashed the enchantments Hiresha had crafted in her dream, and the volley of jewels slammed into his back.

He lurched forward, sapphires and zircons bursting from his tunic. They had punctured his entire torso. The Bright Palm would have collided with the enchantress, likely stabbed her with his knife, but a shield of Lightening protected her and left him floating. Hiresha kicked him, bare foot on his ruined shirt. He arched upward then was slammed to the side by a tangle of gold and silver embroidery wire.

A Bright Palm to her left grabbed at her. His face showed no surprise or horror at what had happened to his comrade. The enchantress tossed a garnet at him, and he rolled away to dodge it.

The last man still upright reached for her with an arm of lean strength. The underside of his stretching hand shone bright and pink next to the ebony of the rest of his skin. Within a second, he would seize her.

A squeak, and the fennec was dragged by his collar onto her lap. She wrapped an arm around him, and with her left hand she fumbled with his collar. Her right clutched the red diamond and was slick from her blood. The fox’s ears folded forward as she slipped off his necklace.

The Bright Palm grabbed for her arm. The fennec nipped him, fangs biting into shining flesh. She squirmed in the chair, away from the tribesman, and she pitched herself forward. His long arms swung down to snatch her. Each instant crawled by with the heart-thudding finality of last chances. She swung her arm up to ward him away. He gripped her blood-slick wrist. She jerked it free.

Stumbling, wheeling about him, she slapped the collar over his hand the next time he reached for her. He ignored the circle of amethysts that slid to his elbow and lowered his massive frame to sprint after her.

She was dashing toward the window. A second’s delay in opening it would be the death of her. She would need a Lightening spell to make it blow open at her touch. As she readied the jewel, the fennec yipped, slipping out of her grasp. She ducked, caught him with her other arm. Her left hand threw a garnet—
Attraction or Lightening?
—and she realized with a shock of horror that she had forgotten to see which. Not that she would have had the time with two Bright Palms thumping across the room.

The jewel struck a crystal pane, white flakes spinning in an eddy on the other side. As the gem flared and tinted the sill with purple light, Hiresha had a moment to imagine if she had thrown the Attraction jewel by accident. She would be trapped against the window and held there for half an hour or until the Bright Palms could pry her loose.

Hiresha charged over the silken remains of her gowns and slammed into the window. Her hand slapped at the latch.

The Lightened window burst open, and Hiresha was flung into the winter storm.

Coldness slammed into her. It pierced her, from bleeding chest to spine. It constricted her, pressuring her from all sides and forcing out her breath. Air-born crystals of ice lashed her skin.

Her stomach flipped as the Academy enchantments wore off and gravity reasserted itself. The direction of her fall changed, reversed, and she tumbled backward, landing beside the window. A break in the clouds revealed blue sky directly above her. She had known the Lark’s Hall floor to be tilted, with that window not facing sideways but up to the sky.

Her banged knee rang with pain as she stood. Before she had even turned to run, a man’s head with short-cropped curly hair stuck out of the window. Except he looked down while she ran up the
Recurve
Tower
.

Though coldness of the snow-swept stone felt like walking on knives, exhilaration coursed through her in a growing heat.
I’m going to escape—

The fennec in her arms gave a cooing series of chirps. She tried to press his mouth closed.

The tribesman swung his head around to see her running up the side of the tower.
 
He sprang through the window after her, his knee-length robes whipping about in the wind.

“Fennec! How could you?”

Hiresha knew she could not outpace a Bright Palm. Not when the cold was already squeezing the life from her muscles, forcing her to hobble more than run. The Bright Palm’s sandals slapped closer, though every few steps she heard a squeal of leather sliding over the slick surface of the tower. The outside of its stone was enchanted with minor Repulsion, to stop snow from piling up, and Hiresha now understood all too well why no novices attempted pranks by climbing outside on bad-weather days.

When her own foot scooted out ahead of her and she landed on her side, she knew the Bright Palm would catch her. Slipping back onto one knee, she looked up to see the purple-jeweled collar flash on his arm. He had traveled far enough from the room with her bracelet to activate its enchantments.

The tribesman’s feet circled in the air as he was Lightened then yanked backward. He skidded over the surface of the tower, helpless as the collar’s spell Attracted him back toward the window and into the room with her bracelet. He never cried out, and his face remained a stoic mask.

Another Bright Palm leapt out the window in time to watch his fellow sucked by him into the room. He called after him. “Tell Sheamab.”

Hiresha hurt with pride for thinking of that maneuver. She had a lead, but she knew it could not last as she scrambled up the curving slope of stone. When she reached the crest of the tower, the full force of the wind hit her, and she moved backward in a heart-screaming slip.

The fennec jabbered and wriggled from her grasp.

She regained her balance and called out. “Fennec!”

The fox hopped alongside then zigzagged ahead. His ears and tail were lowered, but otherwise the desert fox seemed at ease in the snow.
At least compared to a certain naked enchantress.

She plodded onward, and the tower leveled out. Hiresha passed by windows like trapdoors of glass, then walked over a section of quartz wall. Peering down, she saw the shadowy shape of a bridge going through the center of the Hall of Refreshment.

A yip from the fox alerted her to the nearing Bright Palm. He had shuffled forward in a crouch, now straightening for the last dash. He did not seem to pant, or even breathe, and he had drawn his lips between his teeth to the point where he seemed to have no mouth.

Hiresha spun to release a jewel of Lightening. Excitement blazed through her because she knew that a man Lightened here would be blown miles away, either down into the valley or between the peaks and dropped onto a glacier.
Would serve him right, too.

Her fingers had trouble feeling the jewel between them, and she threw it too late in the arc. The wind pushed it further off course, and the Bright Palm did not even have to shift his charge to dodge it.

Last one,
Hiresha thought as she tossed her garnet of Attraction at his feet.

The Bright Palm hopped over it. The snow around the gem lit purple, and he fell backward, smacking against the tower. He tried to stand but only ended slapping back down, the jewel crushing him into a fetal position. The enchantment would hold him there for an hour, more than long enough.

Hiresha tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but it ended more in a wheezing choke. Her lips stuck together. She realized she could not feel anything past her wrists or below her ankles. She checked her wounded hand, saw the red diamond still there. Deliberately folding her fingers over it one by one, she descended the far side of the tower.

The building curved downward in a spiral. Though she could not see it through the storm, this half would eventually loop back upward into the Ceiling of Elders.

Something pink grasped the side of the tower, a billowing tendril of canvas that stretched out into the white gales. Hiresha had no desire to try crawling over the rippling
Tentacle
Bridge
. It would only lead her to the Somnarium, and she was of the belief that nothing good had ever come of venturing to the college of soft enchantment.

Hiresha knew she crossed over the tower’s administrative hall now. Once she reached the Hall of Elders, she would break into her own room. An armory of jewels awaited her there.

“And—and some clothes,” she said to the fennec, her voice a gasp.

The downward slope of tower was shadowed by the coiling bulk of stonework overhead. The building wrapped around itself, and her way was blocked by a coil of stonework. She had to slide partway down the side and crouch below the blocks of stone to advance. The overhanging structure protected her from the wind, for which she was thankful. The gusts had felt like they would slice her in half. Glancing up, Hiresha fancied she could see the glowing outline of a Bright Palm. He had to be holding onto a window, peering down in her direction.

I wonder if he can see me
.

The white blur wobbled in the air as the figure fell between the tower coils, through a gust of snow. Someone smacked against the slope of stone, slid, and caught hold of a window not too far from Hiresha.

Frozen air lodged in her throat, her eyes popping at the Bright Palm.
Is this Sheamab?
When the Bright Palm lumbered toward her, Hiresha saw she was wrong, if not less horrified.

Gold wires stuck out of his flesh. His shirt had fallen to shreds, exposing a mess of black chest hair and skin pockmarked with the jewels that had pierced all the way through his body.

The Bright Palm lived?
The thought slimed its way through her. The sight of him, stomping toward her with chin thrust forward, stunned her. She had heard of the toughness of Bright Palms, but her jewels had to have cut through every organ in his torso. A more decent man would have done the proper thing and died.

Opening her left hand, she saw the garnets imbedded in her blanched fingers, and none of those could be thrown to defend her. In her right, her diamond was dark in the dim light, and she needed it to open doors.

And windows.
She scrambled to the nearest glassy surface, and pressing the diamond against it caused one half to slide open.

Rolling inside, she flopped upward to land against the floor. The fennec yelped as he too was flipped in mid air by the Academy’s enchantment. Hiresha reached out to pull the window closed.
Have to lock it before the Bright Palm—

An arm riddled with jewels slammed the window open. The Bright Palm swung himself into the room with her.