The distant noise that woke Riley was something like a siren.
She was having a dream, an ordinary dream about her life before the Tower, except that in the dream of her old life, she was a girl, and it was pleasant and comforting. It was a vision of what things might have been had she never been drawn into this absurd fantasy world of the City and the Tower. But at the same time, an unreal world: a world where somehow she’d been born into a girl’s body.
These fantasies only had resonance for her in dreams, because the moment she tried to imagine anything like that in reality, her thoughts crashed hard into the wall that kept her memories of childhood a complete blank. The process of radical self-discovery she’d gone on, the ways in which she’d allowed her internal self to become her external self, were all still cautious of that final emotional barrier. Whatever was behind there was terrifying to every part of her, actualized or otherwise.
Some things were best left unconsidered.
Her dream had given way to the insistence of the siren, at first incorporating it as a fire alarm in the dream-room she was in, a signal for everyone to evacuate the dream-building via the dream-fire-exits. As she swam up into consciousness, she wondered: did the Tower have fire exits? Did the Tower have any kind of firefighting capability? Did it just magic the fire away if it happened?
Riley was struck once again by how much ‘the Tower is mysterious and powerful’ operated as a deus ex machina in the world of the City. It made a kind of sense, given the metaphysics: if the Tower was responsible for reality itself, it could certainly do whatever it pleased with that reality.
Omnipotence, but actually exercised in real-time, she thought. If only it was also omni-benevolent.
The siren, though. The noise. As much as Riley’s mind kept trying to drift back into dreams, the fucking noise pierced through it. Was it an alarm?
She struggled out of bed — her own, for a change — and out into the common room. Eve was there, fiddling with a teapot, and looked up. “Hi sweetie. Um, Mari and Su are off to figure out what that noise is.” She waved at the tea-tray. “I know it’s not, um. Coffee.”
“Tea is fine.” She joined Eve on the couch, put her arm around her waist, and laid her head on her shoulder. “I’m still mostly asleep anyway.”
“Me too. Up too late with Himari.”
Which is my fault, of course. Ever since Therese’s revelation to the cadre, they’d all been trying to find some other way out, some kind of loophole or alternate reading or anything that could save her. Himari had become fiercely determined in much the same way that she approached swords practice; Theory texts that Suli had brought back from the Archives had become enemies to be defeated, and if she couldn’t drag the others into staying up all night talking through her ideas, she’d stay up all night alone, reading.
Except for me, because every time I try to participate she looks at me like some kind of fragile porcelain doll. Riley had been obliged to recount the specifics of the dream to all of them, repeatedly, over the past week, and when she wasn’t describing it, she and Therese were re-experiencing it in the trance, looking for any variations that might give some hint of a solution where she didn’t, well, die.
Which left her in a very fragile state, emotionally, and the second time she’d burst into tears while trying to talk about it with the rest of the cadre, Himari had sternly sent her away to bed.
Riley curled into Eve’s side, folding her legs and marveling at the ease with which she settled into feminine mannerisms and body language. It was like she’d been rehearsing these things her whole life. Well, part of me was, anyway, and the voice was the smart-ass Inner Riley voice, still an active participant in her interior world.
The siren felt so urgent, like it was calling her to get up and do something.
Oh.
That wasn’t the siren. That was Therese, and she wasn’t just leaking emotions, she was calling. Come here, the link was saying, wordlessly, with growing insistence. Maybe even fear?
She sat up, suddenly enough that Eve was startled and spilled some of her tea on the couch. “Eve. Come on. We have to go.”
“We, um? What?” Abrupt changes were anathema to Eve. Her confidence around the rest of the cadre functioned only as long as they were all creating a comfortable, familiar social space for her. The moment they strayed outside that, Eve’s self-assurance evaporated and she was once again the shy and terrified girl who had started the year with them.
“Therese is calling. Come on.”
“M-me too? I, um, are you—”
“She’s worried about something and I’m betting it’s the siren and I’m not going off to find out what’s happening without you.” She caught Eve’s hand as she stood, and pulled.
Worry had arrived in Eve’s expression, with a furrowing and tilt of her brows. “Is it, is it bad?”
“Dunno. Let’s go see.”
“You’re not dressed—”
“I’ve got a nightgown on. That’s fine. Come on!”
In the hall, the siren was louder, and now they could make out that it had many voices, high shrieks muffled by the stone walls of the tower, woven together into a rising and falling cacophony.
There was a milling crowd on the common area platform overlooking the atrium, various Novice cadres being managed by Adepts. Allie was talking with Therese, and waved to them, beckoning them over to the little circle of armchairs to which they’d apparently staked a claim.
“Riley, Eve. Where’s the rest of your cadre?” Allie asked.
Riley looked around. “I dunno, you tell me? I just woke up.”
“They went out as soon as the noise started,” Eve said.
“Shit. Probably went to the South Pavilion then.” Allie frowned. “Um, Tee?”
Therese nodded. “It’s safe. But let’s all go together.”
Riley gave her a sharp look, and sent her a spike of concern. What the fuck is going on, she emoted.
Therese replied out loud. “We’re being attacked. Easier to just show you.”
As a group, they descended to the Ranger level, and then down the long passage to the exterior of the Tower. Even before they entered the passage, Riley could tell this was where the shrieking was coming from — outside, to the south. The noise grew louder, almost intolerable in its intensity, and then they were outside in the glittering dark of the City at night.
And the dark was flickering, ionized, sheets of white fire rolling out from the Tower, leaving green and blue wakes hanging in the air behind them. In time with the shrieks, vast arcs of celestial fire leaped out from the upper platforms, and crashed into… something.
Shapes. Black shapes, flying, circling, falling when they were struck by the fire.
Each lash of golden-white celestial power began as a single humming voice in the chorus of shrieks, rising in pitch until it shivered the air around them, and then exploded into a raging noise of destruction as the arc reached out and ignited the shadows that swarmed, circling like clouds of ragged darkness, wisps of smoke.
There were so many of them. In the blackness of night, with only the dull glow of the shattered moon overhead to illuminate the scene, it was the arcs of fire and their aurora afterimages that allowed Riley to see the things, to even begin to count them. Hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds.
“What’s— what’s shooting them?” Eve’s voice trembled but she spoke loud enough to be heard. Riley squeezed her hand; she was so far out of her comfort zone, and it felt like she was drawing confidence out of her contact with Riley to even be able to speak.
Therese looked up at the Tower above them. “The Magisters. Or the Tower, through the Magisters.” She looked back down and over at Riley. “Like in the dream.”
Fuck. This is too soon. I’m not ready. I can’t do this yet. The panic surged into her with the bite of adrenaline and the deep urge to run, to flee back inside, to escape. I haven’t— how can this be happening already? I haven’t figured out—
Therese reached out, put a hand on her shoulder, sent calm down the link. “This is a test, I think. It’s just the fliers. Just the…” She hesitated, shuddering, and Riley could feel the horror creeping into the calm she was projecting. “Just the mature wasp soldiers. A swarm of them. Brynn said, Brynn was telling me that they’ve been running into groups of them. Out in the City. They’re, uh.” She looked down at the ground. “They’re eating Banes.”
“What the fuck?” Allie interjected. She’d been Working, putting some kind of a barrier together just in case. The Pavilion was within the Tower’s sphere of influence, and ought to be safe, but it had given her something to do.
“I don’t know.” Therese put her hands up in a baffled gesture. “Brynn said the Rangers have been finding destroyed Banes, and, uh, empty egg casings.”
“Egg casings.” Riley’s voice was flat and drained of affect. She was horrified in ways that left her inarticulate. Those fucking things. Hatching.
Suliat and Himari had been out in the loose gaggle of people who were watching the battle taking place above, and Su had spotted them, and dragged Himari over. She slipped her arms around Riley and kissed her, and then stepped back to let Himari give Riley a viciously fierce hug. They paired off in one of their usual configurations — Riley and Himari holding hands, Suliat with her arms around Eve’s waist from behind.
It’s odd how natural this feels. And how comfortable we all are with switching between these little arrangements. Riley had talked to Therese about it, when she’d caught an edge of worry in Therese’s thoughts while watching them pair off once, and gotten the theory about the Tower manipulating all of them to bond them together.
More deus ex Tower, I guess. And it’s really hard to complain when it made this happen. She squeezed Himari’s hand, who squeezed back. Fuck it; once you started to question your own base assumptions about the way you perceived reality, you were on a collision course with either solipsism or nihilism, and she’d already decided to accept the Tower and the City as real. In for a penny.
“You can kind of see where the fire’s coming from, from out at the edge of the pavilion,” Himari said. “Like, the platforms up there, at least. Not sure if it’s like the Weapons or what.”
“It’s Magisters,” Riley said. “I want to see.” She tugged at Himari’s hand, and they started out towards the milling group and the ironwork railing.
Allie made a surprised sound and moved to keep pace with them. “I didn’t make this shield large enough to cover the whole pavilion, you know.”
“The Tower seems to be doing okay,” Himari said, pointing with her free hand up at the flashing, searing light show. “The best defense is a good offense and all that. Blasting the little shits before they get close.”
Allie’s face was only visible in flashes when the fire struck out, but her voice was shot through with worry. “Keeping you safe is my job.”
The rest of the group had hurried to catch up, with Suli taking Riley’s free hand and pulling Eve along with her. “And when she stops to think about it, Mari will remember to thank you,” Suli said, pointedly.
Allie laughed, and Himari grinned. “Or immediately, when you actually do save my ass. I like my ass. I want to keep it.”
Riley couldn’t bear to let that opportunity pass by. She said, slowly, drawling out the words, “You knowww…”
“Shut it, Hawkins!” Himari reached across to poke Riley’s shoulder.
From the edge of the pavilion, the swooping creatures were more visible, cutting black shadowy holes against the hanging aurora lights, the glow serving as a colorful backdrop that made their presence like a negative image of horror. They were familiar in outline; the creatures that had attacked at the Mountain were roughly the same shape. These things were many times larger, though, and their movements were swift and abrupt, almost without inertia, pivoting and twisting without warning, dodging away from the gold-white fire. When the shriek of the Tower’s defense had a lull, the cacophony of buzzing, like a thousand saw blades churning through bone, made the creature’s mode of travel clear: they had gossamer insect wings that blurred into invisibility, emerging from their dark carapaces.
At closer range, Riley could make out the thrashing nest of their mouth-parts, and she felt ill. For a moment she had a flicker of a Sigil in her mind, whatever monstrosity of spikes and death had started to come to her back in the locker room, but she quashed it. That would be a very, very bad idea, she told herself. If the Tower didn’t crush me, Gaveny would be right behind it to finish the job.
But just standing here, helpless to do anything, while the Magisters burned through their life force to push these invading creatures back, felt wrong. Knowing she was meant to help, knowing she was destined to spend herself stopping this horror, made her almost eager to get to it. A dark urge, the sort that grips you when you stand on the edge of a very long drop and wonder if you’re going to jump. A need to just get it over with.
Therese’s presence somewhere behind her and to the right sent soothing waves of reassurance. The message was obvious: chill out, Hawkins. This is under control for now. And she couldn’t see anything else attacking; just this swarm, slowly being picked off by the Magisters, the monstrosities’ numbers dwindling gradually.
It was almost impossible to judge the distance to the creatures as they flitted around. In the darkness, they were just shadow cut-outs in the sky, their apparent size varying as they twisted and turned in the air. So the first indicator that anything had changed about the attack was the murmur of consternation, turning to shouts of alarm, that spread through the gathering of onlookers.
The creatures were diving at the pavilion.
All of them, one after another, began plummeting towards the crowd, falling like stones and veering up at the last moment to brake, their wings grinding out snarls like locusts. They darted in towards the scattering crowd—
No, they were darting towards Riley.
She froze.
“Fuck!” Allie shouted as the first of the wasp-things smashed against her Working, the impact sending celestial energies across the shield’s invisible surface, each spark of fire sketching out the Sigil used to make it, until the fire-spark faded into afterimages.
A Working sprang up to support Allie’s. Another shield. Roughly lashed together with some extremely Novice-level equations and a celestial leak in the grounding formula that would eventually drain the shield of power after half a day, but it was a shield, and it immediately absorbed the force of the next attacker that slammed against it.
Riley heard Suliat to her left, speaking a Sigil. “Fixed and Immobile,” she said, and the careful practice of classroom learning made her pronunciation crisp and exact, unlike the usual low murmur the Adepts typically used.
The Sigil was one they’d learned in Allie’s morning classes, though Riley didn’t think there was any kind of Working they’d learned to go with it that would make sense—
Then Suli started sketching the Working, and Riley realized Eve was just past her, her arms held up above her and her palms out as though holding something up. The other shield was Eve’s Working.
Suli’s Working had all sorts of math Riley hadn’t seen before. When had they come up with this? How? She wanted to pick it apart, to have them walk her through the structure, but there was no time now.
Therese grabbed at her elbow, dragging her back towards the Tower’s doorway. “Riley, let’s go! Come on!”
The Working finished and another shield unfolded next to Eve’s. Suli was concentrating just like Eve, now, her hands above her head, pushing outwards, as the monsters smashed against the Sigil-power that hung in the air before them.
Therese pulled and pulled, and all at once a memory flooded back into Riley’s mind, tearing and clawing its way out of whatever dark place it had lurked. In her mind, she was abruptly on the shore of Lake Union in Seattle. Watching a vision of nightmare horror unveil itself from the clouds over the city. A vision in which Therese dragged her away from the rest of her family. A vision in which they all died. It was just an instant, a flash of atrocity, but it was enough to lock her knees and make her stagger and nearly overbalance at Therese’s pull.
Himari spoke. “Pierced by Serpent’s Fang.” Riley didn’t have time to understand or even see all of the Working she was constructing, but whatever it was, it loosed a small tendril of power like the ones flicking down off the Tower, and one of the wasp-things was haloed in celestial fire and shriveled into a cinder. Riley watched as Himari’s fingers danced through a sequence that called up another thread of celestial power. Her entire body was tense with focus. From between her clenched teeth, she said, “You fuckers can’t have my girlfriend.”
Therese finally got her moving in the proper direction of her own volition, and she stumbled as her feet tried to betray her in their haste to turn around. “They’re coming,” Therese yelled. “Fucking move it, Riley!”
So Riley moved, breaking into a run, leaving her family behind her.
Running away and letting them fight for you.
The angry buzzing of the attacking monstrosities increased in volume and pitch as she fled. The door of the Tower drew closer, with all the people who had flooded back inside flattening themselves against the walls to let Riley and Therese in.
Behind them, Riley heard a gasp of— pain? Surprise? It really didn’t matter, of course, because that was the last fucking straw, and she turned back to see what had happened, just a dozen steps from the door, so close to the Tower’s safety, and—
What had happened was that one of the creatures had slammed into the shields, and Eve’s had finally gone down, and so had Eve, collapsing to the tiles of the pavilion. And the wasp-thing had shot through and directly towards Riley, where—
Riley went down, hard, her knee flaring with pain, as the weight of the horrifying alien wasp bore into her, its multitude of thrashing legs hooking into her skin and shredding her nightgown. It clung to her and they both tumbled to the ground, and the hellish buzzing of its wings became loud and angry.
She felt the tendrils of the thing begin to prod her flesh, as she lay as she’d fallen under its weight, on her back, her leg twisted to one side awkwardly, her hands up in front of her to ward off—
The thing clawed its way further up her body, and the bone-tipped tendrils of its mouth raised up to plunge into her—
No
I will not allow it
—the presence was there, the Tower, filling her mind with the Sigil-form of the Tree, burning, and the Sigil spoke, and it was the Tower’s voice—
[we] will be one
be one with [the Tree]
Riley opened herself, feeling the torrent of fire take hold of the aperture of her soul, then tear it wider, and wider,
until she was
until [we] are
one
The fire struck out of her, flickering with impossible speed, not the slow thunderous arcs of the Magisters at the top of the Tower. Each strike was a whip-crack of power, the golden lash appearing in an instant and then gone, leaving only blue afterimages.
And each time it struck, the celestial power erased one of the creatures, leaving it, too, just a glowing blue afterimage. Again and again, the strikes so fast that the telltale shriek was just an instant of piercing agony, over and over.
Riley could feel herself hollowing out, just as in her dream, the Sigil of the Tree burning her identity to ash. What would be left once this was done with her? The damage wouldn’t be fixable. This would kill her. She could see the inevitability of her own death approaching.
And then there was something, like a quiet in the raging inferno inside her mind, a pause, and Therese said, I’m here, Riley. I’m here.
# # #
We’re here, they said, and the shape of the words was strange in their mind. We’re together. We’re, uh. Are we Therese? Are we Riley?
The question seemed important, so they struggled in the non-space of their shared mind and then they found a seam, a way for them to be apart, and they decided it would be good if they had a conversation, so they split.
Riley’s thoughts felt unfamiliar and difficult. She couldn’t concentrate very well, and it took her a few moments to figure it out.
We’re in your mind, she said. Not mine.
I think so, Therese said.
What’s happening—
You’re killing all the attackers. Or, well, the Tower is, and it’s using you to do it.
Riley considered. Okay, well, how am I here?
Therese gestured with both hands, and the shivering little red spark that was the link back into Riley’s mind danced around between them. I pulled you through the link.
Like I did when you were—
Yeah. Therese shivered with remembered horror. The sensation of the parasites crawling under her skin—
Riley interrupted, as much to derail her train of thought as anything. What happens when the Tower kills me?
Therese laughed a little, soft and ironic. The last time we were in this situation, I asked you that, and you didn’t have an answer.
Riley smiled in spite of everything. Sure, but you’re the Adept here. Shouldn’t you know everything?
If only. Therese looked down at her hands, finding herself sitting in the non-space near Riley, with her hands in her lap. I um. I could feel what was happening to you and— She swallowed, her fear lurching up her throat before she choked it back down. Anyway. I just didn’t want you to be alone.
It’s so stupid, Riley thought. Why would the Tower go to all this trouble and then just… kill me anyway? And not even in the big stupid end-boss fight against the Spike, just, against some bugs? She wasn’t even upset, she realized. Just bewildered.
I think it figured you were about to die, and at least this way there was a chance. I mean. Therese shuddered. The bug was about to. Um. It was going to.
Memory of the mass of bone-tipped tentacles.
Riley put her hand on Therese’s arm. Don’t. I know. You don’t have to say it. Or think about it.
Therese looked up from her lap, a weak smile on her face. Thanks.
It’s weird, though. You’d think the power to just deal with some bugs wouldn’t be nearly as much as fighting for all of reality. If this is going to kill me, how was I ever going to deal with the full strength thing? Maybe the Tower only has one setting, ‘fuck everything up’.
Or maybe, Therese thought, it’s going to finish soon and you’ll be okay.
Riley shook her head. It was already erasing parts of me when you brought me in here. Whatever comes out of the other side of that process isn’t going to be me. It’s like… It’s like all the bits of me that the Sigil doesn’t need, it just shoves to one side to make room for itself.
Therese chewed at her thumb. So it’s just like any other Sigil you’ve uh, allowed in? I mean, in how it works. It’s just another possession?
Riley shrugged. You tell me. Or go ask your girlfriend to tell me. I just got here last summer, remember?
Therese smiled. I think the whole concept annoys Nora.
Riley felt momentarily dizzy, and Therese had a brief burst of worry as the dizziness leaked into her awareness. Shit, I need to go look—
Yeah. Go. Whatever that was, it was bad.
Therese drifted off, and Riley’s thoughts turned viscous and unfocused.
Time passed.
Riley.
Mmm? She felt like she was waking up from the deepest part of sleep.
I’m sorry. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take out there, but uh. I peeked in at your mind. Most of the fortress in the center is gone. Therese was throbbing with grief. I think it’s killing you.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I figured. It’s been like that every time I let one of those fuckers into my mind. They just eat everything in reach, for as long as I let them.
Do you think you could, I dunno, negotiate with the Tower? Do whatever it is you do with other Sigils?
Riley shrugged. I can’t even be in the same body as it without it completely overwhelming me. I don’t know how I would get it to listen. It’s just too much. It’s like, it’s like whatever that Sigil was I was starting to call back in the Mountain, in the locker room? There’s no way I could have talked to that thing.
Too alien?
No, they’re all alien, Riley thought. Too big. Too much power. Too overwhelming. I mean, this thing is going to burn out every single Magister, if the dreams are right.
They sat in silence, and in the non-space Therese imagined herself with her arms wrapped around Riley to comfort her, and so they were holding each other.
Hey, Riley?
Yeah?
Riley’s voice had gotten small, just above a whisper, and Therese had to strain to hear her. Which was absurd, because this was inside her own mind, but Riley’s resources were running low, and she was leaning heavily on Therese’s own mental energies to sustain her consciousness.
I just had a thought. This is probably really stupid and a terrible idea, but um.
No. Riley saw the shape of what Therese was proposing before she could even articulate it. No, Tee. That would just get us both killed.
But what if the Tower’s almost done? What if it withdraws soon? I might only have to do it for a few moments. Things are getting really chaotic out there, and I think the monsters might be running out of numbers.
Out in the City, on the Pavilion, something like three or four seconds had elapsed, and Therese had watched the fire pluck the wasp shadows out of the sky over and over, endlessly destroying the numberless horde of them.
What if it’s not almost done, Tee? This thing kills Magisters. It kills Gaveny, for fuck’s sake. You throwing yourself in front of it is fucking stupid.
Therese laughed. Isn’t that how you described doing this very same thing to save me in the City? Something really fucking stupid?
Riley’s focus wandered again, and she tried to gather herself enough to protest once more.
Besides, Novice Hawkins. I don’t think you can actually stop me. Therese radiated a kind of smug satisfaction. So let’s see what happens. Let’s see how much of this I can take.
Therese recalled the sensations of that horrible fight in the locker room. She recalled how it was to reach through the link aperture, to seize the Sigil that was flooding Riley’s mind, to pull it into herself, to accept the drowning wave of celestial fire—
oh fuck this was a mistake
The Sigil filled her, and her mind immediately began fraying, peeling away like paper catching fire. Her consciousness unraveled in an instant, and her sense of self was a tiny wood chip being churned atop the deluge.
im with you tee
riley
yes im with you
cant hold on
you can, i have you
so much, its too much
we can do this
Behind it all, the thunder pulsing the words, over and over. The Tower in the Final City at the End of the Universe. The rest of the world was gone, all white and gold fire, and just those words remained to form the shape of everything, every aspect of her being suffused with them, tearing her open, leaving nothing but—
were still here tee
i cant anymore ry its too much
okay taking it back now, rest, youve done all you can
not enough
we dont know that yet
— and the fire diminished, the roaring cacophony of it dropping to human levels, noise that a human mind could encompass. Riley had her hand, in the non-space, and had closed her eyes to concentrate.
Riley? Are you still—
Riley cracked one eye to look over at Therese and smile. Still here. And um.
Therese felt it even before Riley thought it.
It’s fading. It’s ending. She thought the words into the hollow hush formed by the absence of noise. We survived it.
Riley squeezed her hand. You did it.
What?
You soaked up enough of the Sigil’s fire that my mind is still over there. Riley gestured vaguely at the dancing spark of the link. There’s enough left of me to return to. I don’t know how much of any of this I’m going to remember, but. She gathered Therese up in her arms to crush her in a fierce hug. I’m not dead. I’m still me.
How do you know it was anything I did?
Riley let go of her and shrugged. I dunno. I just do. I could kind of feel myself fading? But when you took the power away, the fading… slowed. She considered. And, well. There’s very little left over there. Whatever tiny scrap is left, wouldn’t be there without you diverting some of the Sigil. She kept her voice upbeat but Therese could feel the horror leaking through it.
You almost died. We almost died.
Yeah. And it was so fucking close. I dunno, I think it makes sense to say we lived because of what you did.
Try to burn myself out and get possessed?
No, doofus. You took part of the burden of the Sigil. We split the—
What?
Riley’s eyes had gone wide, and her thoughts had stuttered to a halt.
Therese. I know how to beat the Spike.
Next button is broken again
The story is really getting exciting now, for sure. I'm very much looking forward to the next parts. :)