The Tower of Endless Worlds (7 page)

She scowled and snatched the cigarettes. “I didn’t say when.” 

Simon pulled on the shirt and tucked it into his khaki pants. “I have to go. I don’t have time to argue with you.”  He tried to grab the cigarettes back. Maura sidestepped with surprising ease. “You’ve got to stop that.”

“Where will you be going, boy?”

“I don’t know.” Simon squinted into the mirror and combed his hair.

“When will you be back?” 

“I don’t know.” Simon shoved the comb into his back pocket. “I’m twenty-six years old, Mom. You don’t need to know where I am and what I’m doing every hour of every day.”

Maura folded her arms. “You’re twenty-six years old and you still live under my roof, eating my food and using my electricity. I think I have a right to know, boy.” 

“Fine.”  Simon looked at a bottle of cologne. Katrina would mock him if he used it. 

“What’s so funny?” said Maura.

“Nothing,” said Simon. “I’m probably going to a restaurant. I don’t know which one. After that we might go see a movie. I don’t know what. Or we might do something else. I might be back by twelve, but I don’t know for sure.” 

“You don’t seem to know an awful lot of things,” said Maura. “What’s this girl’s name again?”

“Katrina Coldridge, Mom,” said Simon. He collected his wallet and keys from his dresser and shoved them into his pockets. 

“You don’t seem to know a lot about her,” said Maura.

“No,” Simon said. “I really don’t.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Love you. Don’t wait up for me, and don’t smoke!” He walked past her and into the hall. 

“When will you be back? Tell me!” said Maura.

Simon turned and grinned. “I’ll tell you when you stop smoking.”

The look she gave him was positively baleful. 

Simon walked out the back door. The western sky burned with the summer sunset, but no doubt smog from Gary contributed to the sunset’s splendor. He took a moment to look over the woods out back. The sunset cast deep black shadows over the tangled trees. Simon’s mind drifted a bit. How old were those trees? They had survived amidst the crowds and pollution of Chicago. How long had they been here? For a moment he felt aware of the trees’ great age, the way he did when he read an old Latin manuscript that had endured the centuries.

A metallic sound echoed over the woods.

Simon peered into the trees. He heard a sound like a ringing hammer and the murmur of low voices. Then the sounds vanished. 

He squinted into the trees and saw nothing.

“Weird.” Simon shook his head. He remembered Maura’s complaint about sounds in the woods. Maybe there was a cave or something under the trees. That would explain why no one had ever built on the site. Or perhaps he had heard something echoing through the sewer pipe running under the driveway. 

It didn’t matter. He had to pick up Katrina. She didn’t seem the sort to tolerate tardiness.

He walked to his van and grinned. The mechanics had done a good job of fixing the damage from the crash. Simon even had enough money left over to fix the air conditioner. 

It only took him about twenty-five minutes to drive to the South Side and the warehouse district. Simon drummed his fingers on the van’s well-worn steering wheel. Perhaps he should find an apartment in the city or in the South Side. The commute sucked up an ungodly amount of time every day.

 Simon pulled through the intersection and onto the road lined by the abandoned warehouses, the walls of Wycliffe’s complex coming into sight. Maybe he should find an apartment and move out. It was past time to get out from under his mother’s thumb. Yet guilt tugged at Simon. He was the only family his mother had left.

A long line of semis sat before the compound’s gates, waiting to enter. Simon cursed and pulled to the curb opposite the compound and made sure to lock his doors. With luck, he could get Katrina and get back before someone stole his van. 

“Sir. Sir! A word, if I may?”

A thin man in a ragged black uniform hobbled toward his van. He had feverish eyes in a pale face and an tangled, unkempt beard. 

The man looked like a drug junkie in withdrawal. 

“Listen," said Simon. "I don’t have any money.”

The man blinked. “Money? I have money, yes. I will give it to you, if you do something for me.” He had a peculiar accent, and his uniform had a weird symbol on the chest, a hand holding a burning eye.

“I don’t have any drugs,” said Simon. “I’m not a dealer. I don’t want trouble.”

“Drugs?” said the man. “I do not know what those are. And I, too, desire no trouble. I…” He darted a glance at the trucks pulling into Wycliffe’s compound. “I wish a service of you. Transport me in your…vehicle, and I shall pay you money.”

Simon considered running for the compound. “Listen. I don’t have time to take you anywhere.” 

“Please,” said the man. “I will pay you. Good money. I must go…purchase some food. I need some food. I am unfamiliar with your…country. I must have someone take me places.” 

“Oh,” said Simon. “You’re an immigrant. Where are you from?”

“Ah…I don’t know,” said the man.

Simon felt dubious. “You don’t know? Is this some sort of con?” 

“No…con,” said the man. “I am from a foreign nation, yes. I just do not know what the word for my nation is in your tongue.”

“Right.” Simon pointed. “Down that way about five blocks is a bus stop. Just wait there, feed your money into the driver’s machine, and it’ll take you where you want to go.”

The man blinked. “A bus?”

“Yeah. You know. A bus.”  Simon pointed at his van. The man looked puzzled. “Like my van, only bigger. It’s public transportation. You can pay the driver to take you places.”

“They will?” The man bowed. “Thank you, sir. I owe you a debt.”

Simon felt uncomfortable. “It’s nothing. Take this.” He peeled a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and pressed it into the thin man’s hand. “Buy yourself something to eat, okay?”

The man bowed again. “Thank you, sir.” He limped away down the sidewalk, his left foot dragging. 

One met some strange people in Chicago. 

Simon crossed the street and went to the booth besides the gate. One of the new security men manned the booth. Like all the others, he wore a hooded motorcycle jacket, a long beard, and mirrored sunglasses. Had Senator Wycliffe hired a biker gang? 

“Hi,” said Simon. “Big shipment coming in, eh?” The bearded face shifted to look at him, and Simon saw his reflection in the guard’s sunglasses and felt a trickle of fear. “Um…I’d like to go in, please.”

“Name?”  The guard’s voice rumbled like a rolling boulder.

“Simon Wester.”

“Reason for visit?”

“Ah…I’m here to pick up Ms. Coldridge. Katrina Coldridge.” 

The guard stared at nothing for a few moments. “ID?”

“Oh.” Simon pulled out his wallet. “Sure.” He handed over the employee ID card he had received from Markham. The guard took the card and examined it. 

“Very well,” said the guard. “You may enter.” 

“Thanks.” Simon hesitated. “Can I have my ID back?”

The guard handed the card over. Simon hurried through the gate, trying to hide his relief and his fear. Why should he fear the guards? He did work here, after all. He had every right to be here.

Yet all his assurances melted away every time one of those guards looked at him. There was something…wrong about them. 

Katrina stood before the door to the main office, a cigarette in her hand. She wore a black jacket and a short black skirt. She also wore high-heeled black leather boots. They displayed her legs quite well. 

Katrina dropped the cigarette and ground it out beneath her boot. “You’re late.”

Simon jerked his head at the gate. “Traffic jam.”

Katrina shook her head. “On a Sunday night, too. None of those idiots know how to enter shipping information. So they do it over and over again. Tomorrow I’ll come in and find the database server overloaded with improperly entered invoices.” She tapped her belt. “Or they’ll page me at three in the morning about it.”

“You know, it is Sunday night,” said Simon. “You could think about something other than work.”

Katrina raised an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk.”

“Well…but I enjoy my work. You just crab about it,” said Simon. Katrina lit anther cigarette. “Don’t…”

“What?” said Katrina. She took a long draw. “Going to give me an anti-smoking lecture?” 

“No, no,” said Simon. The evening had gotten off to a marvelous start. “It’s just…I’ve been trying to get my mother to quit.” He shrugged. “Reflexive habit, I guess. I hide her cigarettes, and she goes out and gets more behind my back. We’ve been doing that for years.”

Katrina laughed, a puff of smoke rising from her mouth. “Really? My mom does the same thing, even though she smokes like a chimney herself. I came home from work once and she had flushed each and every one of my cigarettes down the toilet. I was so pissed. Now I have to take them with me to work.” She shrugged. “She’s right, though. I have to quit one of these days. It’s too goddamned expensive.”

Simon leaned against the wall besides her. “So, where do you want to go?”

“There’s this little pizza parlor I know about,” said Katrina. “My mom used to work there. It’s pretty nice. Good garlic bread.”

Simon put his hands into his pockets. “I’d always heard garlic was a bad thing to eat on a date.”

Katrina tapped ash from her cigarette. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not getting lucky tonight.”

“It’s been a while, but even I knew that,” said Simon.

“Really,” said Katrina. “A while?”

“I last went out…six years ago, I think,” said Simon, and then regretted it. Probably a tactical error, admitting that.

Katrina laughed, smoke puffing from her lips. “Six years? Six?” 

Simon grimaced. “You don’t have to make such a production out of it.”

Katrina laughed. “Four years, myself.”  She shrugged. “I’ve been busy. Especially after I got out of school.”

“What kept you so busy?” said Simon. 

Katrina shrugged again. “Finding jobs. I’d decided I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life waiting tables full of drunk old guys. And I was sick of men.” Her smile turned brittle. “Bad relationship, you see. So I moved back in with my mom and held down three part-time tech jobs until I got this one. Between that and everything else, I didn’t have time to deal with the idiots who kept trying to get into my pants.”

“You live with your mom?” said Simon.

She glared at him. “Yeah. You got a problem with that, college boy?” 

Simon spread his hands. “No. I live with my mother, too.”

Katrina laughed. “I thought so.”

“Why?” said Simon.

“You seem like that type.”

Simon grimaced. “And what type is that?”

“The type that still lives with his mother at thirty-five,” said Katrina, grinning.

Simon stepped away from the wall. “For your information, my mother is old and not in the best of health.” He pointed at her cigarette. “All those cigarettes, you see. And my dad’s been dead for ten years. She needs someone to live with her, and it may as well be me.”

“Same way with my mom,” said Katrina. “Welcome to the 21st century, you know? It used to be that parents kicked their kids out into the world. Now the hard old world kicks out the kids and they go back to their parents.”

Simon thought of all the miserable jobs and difficulties he had battled in the few years of his adult life. “Amen.”

“Yeah. Eh. Hell.”  Katrina ground out her second cigarette. “You can stand here and philosophize if you like, college boy, but I want some food. Let’s get going.”

Simon smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“Don’t kiss my ass.”

Simon smirked. “Is that an offer…”

“Don’t even say it.”

Chapter 7 - The Fall of Carlisan

Year of the Councils 963

Sir Luthar Belphon’s head exploded in a spray of brains, blood, and twisted steel. He fell from the back of his charger and hit the paved street, his armor clattering. 

“Luthar!” screamed Sir Arran Belphon. His horse galloped another thirty feet before he could stop. “Luthar!” He spun his horse around and thundered across the scorched ground to his fallen brother. 

Another explosion shook the city, sending the smell of sulfur and burned flesh into the air. 

Arran could not believe the devastation that surrounded him. Five years ago this had been the Royal Square of Carlisan, capital city of the greatest of the High Kingdoms. Five years ago the Temple of the True Gods had stood at one end of the Square, the high tower of the White Council at the other end, and the Scepteris Palace had towered like a mountain over the city. Five years ago the Knights and the White Council had broken the might of the Black Council. Lord Marugon, last of the Warlocks, had fled across the Crimson Plain and vanished into the Tower of Endless Worlds. The winged demons, the Black Council’s allies, had been driven into the Wastes. 

Peace had reigned. 

Now the Square stood in ruin, the high tower of the White Council smashed, the Temple a heap of rubble, and the Scepteris Palace in flames. Men bearing guns, hell-machines that spat burning death, had slaughtered the Wizards of the White Council. The winged demons had swarmed out of the Wastes, armed with more of the infernal guns. Marugon himself had returned from some distant world, bringing hell-forged war machines of terrible power. And now Carlisan stood in ruins, its white walls and towers smashed by Marugon’s guns. 

Much had changed in five years.

In his twenty years, Arran had never seen such horrors. 

A man in the black uniform of Marugon’s gunmen stepped out from behind a heap of rubble. A long black gun, the kind the gunmen called a Kalashnikov, rested in his hands. He grinned down at Luthar, gloating over his kill. 

With a cry of rage Arran spurred his horse forward, his shield raised, and drew his Sacred Blade. An aura of blue power flashed around the razor-sharp steel. 

The soldier spun, contempt flashing across his unshaven face. He raised his weapon and fired. The first salvo shredded Arran’s shield, blasting it to wooden kindling. Arran jerked the reins to the side. The second salvo shot past his shoulder, the bullets brushing against his shoulder plates. 

The gunman aimed for a third salvo, but by then it was too late for him. Arran's Sacred Blade flashed down in a blaze of blue flame and took off the gunman’s hands. The soldier screamed, staggering, and Arran whipped his sword around and decapitated the gunman. 

His brother remained motionless, blood spreading beneath him.

“Luthar!” said Arran. He dropped his ruined shield, slid from his saddle, and ran to his brother’s side. “Luthar!” 

Luthar’s face, its lean, dark-eyed features so similar to Arran’s, gazed up in a mask of astonishment. The bullet had shredded the back of his skull, driving the shards of his helm into his head. Blood pooled on the paving stones beneath his ruined helm. Luthar’s Sacred Blade, its blue glow extinguished, lay besides his body. 

“Luthar,” whispered Arran. A sob choked out the rest of his words. 

Arran took his Sacred Blade in both hands and stood. He would stand over his fallen brother, stand until Marugon’s soldiers and their accursed guns swarmed over the city’s ruins. He would raise a ring of fallen enemies until the hated bullets shredded his flesh…

“Sir Arran!” 

Arran blinked through his tears. “Sir Liam?”

A Knight on a black horse galloped towards Arran, his gleaming armor coated by ash and blood. The hilts of two Sacred Blades rose over his shoulders. The Knight reined up, staring down at Arran with hard gray eyes. 

“Sir Arran,” said Sir Liam Mastere, the only Knight who could wield two Sacred Blades in battle. “You must come with me.”

“Luthar’s dead!” said Arran. 

“I know,” said Liam, his voice tired. “I’m sorry, Sir Arran, but you must come with me.” 

Arran shook his head. Another explosion rumbled through the city. “No. I can’t leave him. I’ll avenge him.” 

“You must ride with me at once,” said Liam.

“No!” said Arran. “I will not leave my brother! I will fight here until…”

Liam slapped Arran across the face with an armored gauntlet. “Come to your senses, young Knight! Your brother is dead! You are not. Will you stand here and die, or will you yet do some service to your King and your Order?” 

“What?” said Arran, his jaw stinging. 

“Prince Lithon Scepteris yet lives,” said Sir Liam. “He and his older sister, the Princess Anna, wait at the western gate with an escort of Knights. It is the King’s wish that we escort them from the city at once.”

Arran bristled. “Then we are to run from a battle?”

“The battle is lost!” said Liam, his face darkening. “The city is lost, the High Kingdoms are lost, and I fear the world is lost! But we yet have a chance to save something.” He clenched a fist. “Master Alastarius made a Prophecy before Marugon killed him. He said that if Prince Lithon were saved, then not all would be lost. I need your help, Arran. I cannot get Lithon out of the city by myself.” 

“Alastarius?” Arran remembered the old Wizard, the Master of the White Council. Among all the Wizards, only Alastarius had possessed the gift of Prophecy. “He…he said that?” 

Sir Liam nodded. “Throw your life away if you wish, but decide quickly. I do not have long to tarry.”

Gunfire echoed through the streets, followed by a chorus of screams. Arran looked down at his brother’s body. “I’ll come.”

“Good man,” said Liam. “Hurry!” 

Arran paused and took up Luthar’s Sacred Blade. He could not wield it, of course – all Knights, save for Sir Liam, could only wield one Sacred Blade at a time. Yet Arran did not want to leave his brother’s sword for Marugon’s accursed gunmen. 

“Hurry,” said Sir Liam as Arran climbed into his saddle. “The way to the western gate is clear, but not for long.”

Arran nodded and put spurs to his horse.

They galloped through the streets of Carlisan. Fires raged in most of the houses, and bullet holes riddled their walls. Heaps of corpses lay at the corners, blood seeping from their wounds. The survivors staggered back and forth, their faces dazed and stunned. One bloody woman, her clothes brunt and ragged, knelt in the street and tried to bury herself. Another explosion rocked the city, and chunks of flaming rubble rained around them. Arran winced and raised an armored hand to cover his face, pebbles and shards of burning wood bouncing off his breastplate. He heard a long salvo of gunfire, followed by a cacophony of agonized screams. 

Arran gritted his teeth and followed Liam. 

The wreckage of the western gate loomed before them. The doors had been thrown down and smashed, flames dancing over their ruined timbers. Corpses lay strewn across the ground. The sickly stench of burned flesh hung over the square, over all Carlisan, like a funeral shroud. 

Sixty Knights, battered and sooty, sat atop their chargers. Arran’s heart sunk. Five years ago there had been five thousand Knights to defend the High Kingdoms against the Warlocks and winged demons. Now Sir Liam could only find sixty to guard the Crown Prince of Carlisan? 

A young woman sat atop a gray palfrey, a wailing toddler cradled in her arms. Arran recognized Princess Anna and her younger brother Crown Prince Lithon. When Arran had seen Anna last, she had looked radiant and majestic in her gown and jewels. Now she seemed just another huddled refugee slumped over her horse. 

“Knights!” said Sir Liam, reining in his horse. “The King has commanded that we conduct his heir from the city with all speed.” 

“So, we are to run from our foes, then?” said a Knight with a blood-crusted helm and breastplate. 

“It pains me,” said Liam, “but we have no other choice. The King has commanded…”

A deafening thunderclap drowned out Liam’s words. The ground bucked and heaved, and Arran struggled to keep his horse under control. Anna’s palfrey whinnied, and two Knights rushed to her and the toddler’s side. Arran spun his horse around and gazed towards the heart of the city. A huge ball of flame and smoke rose from where the Scepteris Palace had stood. Even at this distance, Arran could feel the fireball’s heat.

He wondered if Lord Marugon had brought the end of the world. 

“My brothers,” said Liam, voice shaking. “I suspect that Crown Prince Lithon is now King Lithon.” Anna stifled a sob. “We must take the King and his sister to safety. Who will ride with me?” 

“I will!” said Arran, lifting his Sacred Blade. The other Knights took up the cry. The glow of sixty Sacred Blades outshone the burning light of the Scepteris Palace’s ruin. 

Sir Liam put spurs to his horse. The other Knights followed him, Anna secure in their midst. They galloped through the ruined gate and into the scorched farmlands surrounding Carlisan’s battered wall. The horses’ hooves kicked up puffs of gray ash.

“To the west!” said Sir Liam, pointing with his glowing swords. Marugon and his hell-machines had come from the west. 

For the first time, Arran wondered where Sir Liam planned to take the young King. 

They thundered down the western road. Carlisan burned in its death throes behind them. Torn and blasted corpses littered the countryside, once the mighty armies of Carlisan. Five hundred of Marugon’s men armed with the Kalashnikovs had slaughtered a hundred thousand swordsmen, pikemen, and archers. Clouds of black smoke drifted over the battlefield, some of it rising from burning corpses. 

“Ahead!” said Sir Liam. “Prepare…”

Gunfire ripped down the road. Four Knights fell from the saddle, blood bursting from their torn armor. 

Arran wheeled his horse around. A dozen of Marugon’s soldiers blocked the road, Kalashnikovs in their hands. 

“Charge!” said Sir Liam. “Ride them down!”  Three more Knights died, bullets shredding their bodies. Screams of agony, the thunder of the guns, and the shriek of tearing metal filled the air. 

“For the King!” screamed a Knight, a moment before a bullet pierced his helm. 

Arran spurred his mount forward, his Sacred Blade flashing. The Knights gave a great cry and charged. Anna and the child, caught in their midst, rode with them. 

The gunmen shifted their aim and began mowing down the Knights. Arran gritted his teeth and tried to control his skittish mount. A horse screamed and died as bullets thudded into its body. Arran wondered if they would all die before they could reach the gunmen.

The gunmen ceased fire. They dug through their belts, pulling out small black boxes and jamming them into the guns. 

“They are out of bullets!” said Sir Liam. “Quickly, before they reload!”

The surviving Knights thundered at the gunmen. Arran began to mutter the oath of the Knight of the Sacred Blade. “A Knight protects the King. A Knight fights against treachery and fends off injustice. A Knight sheds blood for his brothers...”

The gunmen snapped their weapons back up and fired.

Princess Anna’s chest disintegrated. Her horse screamed and reared back, and a salvo of bullets thudded into the horse’s flanks. The animal teetered and began to fall, King Lithon clutched in the arms of his dead sister.

“No!” said Arran. He leapt from his saddle and snatched the King from Anna’s arms. The horse gave a final scream and fell. Arran jumped back from the dying animal, clutching the King to his armored chest with his free hand. 

A black-uniformed soldier stepped forward, weapon raised. Arran spun, his Sacred Blade flashing in a sapphire blur. He cut the gun in half with a spray of sparks. The gunman snarled an oath and yanked a Glock from his belt. But before he could raise the weapon Arran drove his blade through the gunman’s throat. 

He spun around, looking for new enemies. 

None of the gunmen remained standing. Arran lowered his sword, his breath burning in his throat. Dead men and horses carpeted across the road. Of the sixty Knights that had ridden out with Liam Mastere, only thirty remained standing. 

“Sir Arran!” Sir Liam galloped over, Sacred Blades covered in blood. “The King! Is he…”

Arran looked down at the screaming toddler. “He’s alive.”

“Thank the gods,” said Sir Liam. 

“But Princess Anna is dead,” said Arran. 

Sir Liam looked at the Princess, crushed beneath the body of her horse. A spasm crossed the old Knight’s face. “Damnation,” he whispered. “Damn them all, Arran.”

Arran managed a nod. “Sir Liam.”  The old Knight gazed down at the Princess's corpse. “Sir Liam, we must hurry.”

Sir Liam glanced up, blinking. “Yes…yes, you’re right. Here, I shall take the King.”

Arran handed King Lithon over to Sir Liam and climbed back into the saddle.

###

“I need to know something,” said Arran.

Grime and soot smeared Liam’s lean face. The King hung in a harness across the old Knight’s armored back, similar to the baskets the peasants of the mountains of Rindl used for their children. The King slept, his little hands clenching. Rolling hills stood over the road, peaceful despite the tumults of war. 

“Yes?” said Sir Liam.

“Where are we going?” said Arran. 

They had ridden eight hundred miles in the last three weeks, across the breadth of the war-torn High Kingdoms. Arran thought it a miracle that the bouncing of their desperate ride hadn’t shaken the young King to death. They had ridden past ruined cities, their walls and towers ablaze, past small hamlets filled with bullet-ridden corpses. Of the thirty Knights that had escaped the ruin of Carlisan only nine remained. Once the Knights had been the finest warriors in all the High Kingdoms, able to master any foe. Now any unshaven peasant with a gun could kill dozens. It was a truth too hard to face. 

More than one Knight had fallen on his Sacred Blade in the dark of the night. 

“To take the King to a safe place,” said Sir Liam.

“And where would that be?” said Arran. Liam tried to ride away, but Arran spurred his horse and caught up to the older Knight. “Just where would be safe, Sir Liam? Marugon’s men are everywhere. His guns are everywhere. The winged demons are everywhere, flying through the sky or slouching in the disguise of real men. Just where is safe?”