The Tower of the Forgotten (6 page)

He
crossed his arms and smiled in his usual silky manner, which put Portia immediately
on edge. "Did you miss me?"

"That’s a stupid thing to say. Of course not! I came for my axe."

"Your axe? Didn’t you leave it behind?"

"Not by choice."

"Well, I suppose you ought to come and get it, then."
He stretched one arm out, indicating the chamber in which Imogen had been kept.

Portia looked between him and the door. It opened with a soft creak of its hinges.

"I’ve tried, but you sealed the damn thing to yourself and I
can’t wield it."

Ignoring
him, she glanced into the room. The axe sat there, glinting on the stone floor.
She took a step toward it, and Nigel fell in behind her.

"So
there’s no use for me keeping it. It does belong to you."

Portia
did not like his tone, but she turned away from him and focused on her weapon.
Nigel made a quick movement toward her, but she deflected him with her wings.
Something passed through the feathers, irritating them as it went. She reached
out her hand and called for the axe, commanding it by the name of her own
father’s soul bound inside: Zepar.

The
golden axe flew through the room, end over end, a strange and ever-present
light gleaming on the crescent-moon blade and the sturdy hammerhead, as well as
the twining spike that stretched from the tip. For a moment, she feared it
would come to rest in her hand blade-first, but the shaft swung around and
deposited itself firmly in her grip. The touch of the Nephilim-leather wrapped
handle still gave her a moment’s revulsion, but she
swallowed it back and turned on Nigel.

He
had his hands clasped at his waist with no obvious sign of a weapon in them.
His smile told a different story.

"Listen,
we’ve gotten off to a bad start, you and I. We can
make it different, Portia, we don’t have to dance to the
tune they play!"

"I
think you made that decision some time ago, Nigel. And from what I remember,
you are a tremendous dancer."

He
chuckled and advanced a step. Portia held her ground.

From
her hiding place on the balcony, Imogen sent Portia a vision: a carriage coming
into the circus grounds. And that was not all: dim figures rose from the
shadows between buildings and along the seashore. A low moan rode in on the
ocean breeze.

"What’s going on out there? What were those things trying to kill
me?"

"Kill
you? Silly girl, the likes of they can’t kill you. They sought
only to entertain you."

In
her double vision she saw Nigel’s smile widen as he
shifted his weight; she saw the carriage coming to a stop just outside the
copper line surrounding the circus. She shut her eyes for a moment,
disoriented.

Nigel
sprang on her, taking advantage, but Portia sidestepped him. His spirit essence
glowed through her eyelids. She thrust out her leg and caught him at the
ankles, kicking his feet out from beneath him. He did not fall, but only
staggered, turning away from her for a moment to protect whatever he had hidden
in his shirtsleeve.

Portia
covered the distance to the door in a few lunging steps and waited for his next
move. Outside, a maelstrom brewed, and even Nigel paused to listen, concern
clouding his features.

"Not yet," he murmured. "Damn it, not
yet
!"

"Portia!" Imogen’s cry speared Portia’s
heart with its grief and terror. "Hurry! It’s Radinka!"

She
stepped across the threshold to find Imogen half-over the railing already. Far
below them, a young girl whose dark hair swirled around her solemn face stood
on the small rise where Portia’s tent had once stood.
Portia recognized her from the convent; yes, her name was Radinka, and she’d had a penchant for magic.

Now, she was some sort of conduit. Behind Portia, Nigel growled and swore, pacing
back and forth across the tower’s top floor.

Whatever
Nigel thought the plan was, it appears that there are other plans afoot."

"We have to get down there, we have to save her!"

Portia
watched the blue glow spread along the copper lines half-buried along the
perimeter of the circus.

The
light encircled the grounds and shot out through the rolling, grey waves. It
wrapped around the base of the tower, quickly winding its way into a tight
spiral up the walls.

"Time
to go." Portia scooped Imogen into her arms and
leapt from the balcony, carrying them both toward an outcropping on the
hillside overlooking Avernus.

She
touched down on the sun-warmed rock and watched as the glow fully engulfed the
tower. The walls seemed to dissolve—at least the walls
between the living world and that of the dead.

From
within the tents and trailers came the familiar faces of the circus: the
roustabouts and midway barkers, her fellow sideshow freaks and Aseneth, even
Halford and Quentin, all wandering the same direction: toward the tall,
copper-clad obelisk situated in the center of the courtyard near her pavilion.
From their vantage point, the layout was even clearer than what the circus
plans had shown.

A
second wave of figures rose up out of the shadows, from the roads leading in
from Capitola-by-the-Sea, from the sandy dunes along the seashore, and from the
foothills below them. These figures came shakily, often stumbling. While the
circus denizens had moved like sleepwalkers, these new additions shambled like
the walking dead. They ringed the circle, creating a wall between those inside
and escape. No one looked remotely interested in escape.

Ringing
the obelisk, they began to strip. Symbols and sigils far too familiar to Portia’s eyes painted the unclothed bodies. They writhed against
one another, kissing and biting and roughly groping in a fierce orgy around the
central point of Avernus. Quentin brought out his fountain pen and Halford his
blue architect’s pencil. Like a
well-choreographed dance, they began to write on one another. Not just a mess
of symbols, but long passages and stanzas of poetry. As they inscribed the words
onto one another, the letters began to glow. The illumination was subtle at
first, and Portia did not think Imogen could perceive it, but soon it grew
brighter. Imogen touched Portia’s wrist and pointed.

"How
do we stop this?" Portia asked.

Imogen
shook her head. "I don’t know."

"Can
we break the connection between Radinka and the circle?"

"Not
without jeopardizing her safety."

"That’s a risk we may have to take,"
Portia said as they touched down just beyond the perimeter of the circle. "These people are going to be consumed!"

When
the two circus owners had covered one another entirely with words, they dropped
their writing tools and fell against each other with a heaving groan. Halford
wrapped his arms around the obelisk, pressing his body against it, while
Quentin came at him from behind, gripping him firmly by the hipbones and
driving himself deep into Halford’s body. As they rutted
in the street, the shimmer of the words grew in intensity, cascading off of
their skin into glittering blue lights like fireflies. The frenetic energy
infected the others as they, too, began to copulate with their nearest
neighbors, regardless of gender, appearance, or age.

The
glow spread out from the center of the promenade, snaking across the electric
wires and through the copper embedded in the buildings and tents. Blood, tears,
and the fluids of sex saturated the earth and seemed to instigate the circus
denizens into more frenzied fornication. The light streamed out from contact
point to contact point, creating a vast network of bluish lines that connected
to the circle encompassing the circus.

They
stepped back from the encroaching glow.

"We
need to stop this," Imogen cried.

A
guttural bellow echoed across the coastline. Blue light erupted from the ground
in an upward cascade of rock, paving stones, sod, tent fragments, and bits of
clothing. The illumination jumped from body to body, linking them all like some
grotesquely glowing necklace as they writhed, moaning, whether in terror or
ecstasy, Portia could not tell.

"This
cannot end well." Portia grabbed Imogen
by the waist, awkwardly keeping hold of the axe, and took off, straight up,
laboring to bring them above the impending mayhem below.

Portia
looked down. Radinka was gone.

Halford
and Quentin could still be seen at the center of the courtyard, slavering and
thrusting madly, Quentin into Halford and Halford into the tower’s base. Then, they both froze and threw their heads back in
unison, mouths stretched wide in what might have passed for climax in any other
setting. But the light was moving through them, through their bodies and into
the obelisk. Their eyes rolled back and they collapsed into dust as their souls
were drawn violently from them and sucked into the glowing copper. Their
actions foretold the fates of the others, who roared now, fiendishly slapping
and grinding their bodies together until as one they shuddered and fell to
pieces, releasing their spirits.

Portia
pressed higher into the sky, feeling the draw of the dark magic below pulling
on her with ferocious energy.

"Saint
Christopher, Saint Christopher," she murmured.

Imogen
laid her head against Portia’s chest and softly
chanted. Slowly, Portia felt her strength build, then double, although Imogen
grew heavy in her arms. They tumbled onto the rocky ledge in a tangle of limbs.

In
one blinding flash from below, the sundered souls went shrieking into the
obelisk at the center of the circle and vanished.

The
hunched figures waiting at the perimeter howled in a hungry fashion, turning
toward the tower with the afterglow of the spell still smoldering eerily in
their eyes.

It
was quiet and still after that. The ceaseless waves even paused in their
barrage of the shore, and not a single dog or night bird stirred. Looking down
over the edge of their perch, Portia and Imogen saw nothing but a field of
ashes where the Circus Avernus had once been, and the tower rising, ominous and
glowing, from the spit of land across the water.

They
caught their breath, arms and legs leaden with exhaustion.

The
light flickered beneath the waves, steady in time to the thrum of the great
engine below.

Portia
marshaled the last of her strength. "We’ve got to find Radinka. Come on."

Imogen
nodded and stood. This time, Portia arranged her and the axe more carefully,
which made carrying her far easier than it had been. She dove from the cliff,
spreading her wings wide to catch the sea wind and glide for as long as it
would hold her.

They swung out over the road, looking for
any sign of the girl. From behind them, the glow grew brighter, and from
beneath the calm grey sea, a low and too-familiar rumble disturbed the silence.

—
5
—

A LOW WOODEN SIGN by the road announced that they were
entering the Village of Soquel, situated in the foothills above the seaside
town. Beyond the small, thatched-roof houses and the shuttered marketplace, the
road wound up higher into the hills. A thick stand of trees separated the
outskirts of the village from the immense estate that opened up before them.

A mansion sat perched at the intersection
of two large and impeccably manicured gardens, surrounded by a low wall of
fitted stone. Portia and Imogen had taken to the road nearly a mile hence, and
footsore and weary to the bone, they paused outside the wall. In the grey
pre-dawn chill, the house looked inviting with light shining through the pair
of tall oak doors carved with dramatic scrollwork and set with leaded glass
windows.

Imogen
looked at the estate. "Who lives here? It
smells like magic."

"Lord
Alaric Regalii, unless I miss my guess."

"Oh, him. Can we trust him?"

"I don’t know, honestly. But we have no other allies,
and I wouldn’t turn aside any Regalii
support."

Imogen
nodded. "Not a bad idea. Even if he isn’t completely trustworthy, he shall have to swear an oath of
hospitality; it’s custom. We can get
some rest and hopefully find out about Radinka."

Portia
rubbed her temples. "So, I suppose we should
stroll on up to the front door and knock, then?"

"I suppose we should."

Fine. Let’s."

They
climbed over the wall and headed straight for the elaborate front doors. Portia
yanked on the bell pull. To her surprise, Alaric came to the door himself.

He
looked as if he had been in his study; a long gentleman’s dressing gown hung open over his shirt and trousers. He
gazed at them with an expression that was half irritation, half amusement.

"You
have diverged from our agreement, my dear," he said.

"Circumstances
changed. May we beg hospitality from you, Lord Regalii?"

"We?" He made a great show of looking around Portia.

"Yes,
myself and the Mistress Imogen Gyony." She hardly needed to
point Imogen out to him. Even in the misty dawn, her fiery red hair shone and
she stood nearly half a head taller than Portia.

"Our
intelligence clearly stated that Imogen Gyony had been killed…years ago."

"Your
intelligence was obviously flawed," Imogen told him tartly.

Portia
laid a hand on her beloved’s forearm, tasting the
lie in Alaric’s words. "Does that matter? From the feel of this place you have no
problem consorting with the dead."

"Are
you Aldias, now, hmm?"

"Are
you going to let us in?"

He
looked them over, appraising them, his eyes resting on Portia’s eyes and hair, on Imogen’s
face, and almost hungrily on the golden axe.

Of
course, of course. Excuse me." He stepped back,
throwing both doors open wide. "Welcome, ladies, to my
home. I offer you my household’s hospitality."