The Select's Bodyguard Page 3

  Chapter 3 - The Ruined Tower

  I stop. Fatigue has failed to slow me. The scene before me succeeds.

  Her tower rises above me, decapitated. It has loomed over me, broken, puffing, beckoning. The sun is warm now, the air still. The smoke billows; I can see fire lazily licking the bones of its meal. The tower is tilted, nudged, but it stands.

  Separating me from what remains of the wide entrance is a trench. The generators that provided power to Section Four hummed here, fussed over by Architects. Dreary, overworked Select. Dead now. I think I see pieces of them here and there. The power facility sat in the barrier wall between Section and Tower. Gone, all of it. Obliterated into powder and junk. The tower entrance reveals the rooms within, like the side of a doll house.

  Where are the Select? With magic they move rock, wield wind, control fire. I hear none of it. If regular man survives and begins to dig his way out, Select will too. But I do not see them; I do not see them working.

  The trench is deep, its walls steep. My fingers hold my weight; my battered feet find toeholds. I work slowly, unused to climbing, but my will is strong. I have no fear of falling; therefore, I will not fall. I reach the bottom, begin up the other side. I reach level ground. Done.

  I peer up as I enter beneath the shattered structure. If it has not fallen, it will not, but even I cannot escape the sense of inexorable gravity pulling down, down, down. I pass through the foyer. Men here died instantly, the ceiling beams and furniture from the floor above crushing them. I listen. There is sound, a voice, nearby. Not hers. It might know where she is, though.

  I search it out, moving into the main hall, turning aside into a room designated for drinking and lounging. A club for Guides and their assistants, a place where men who decide the fate of thousands toss dice and wild ideas. One is dead at the threshold. He sprawls across the carpeted floor. The room is miraculously untouched. I step inside, wary. I check behind the door, open the cabinets. No one else is there.

  I return to the body. His blood stiffens the carpet. I turn him over. I know him. Essendr, an amiable fellow as Guides go. She hated him. A gash runs along his abdomen, a wound in his chest. Weapons. Blades? Unconventional in Jalseion. I would know.

  I say a prayer for his soul. I have largely forgotten my mother’s faith, but old habits die hard. I’ve seen death. The city stinks with it today. But I was to protect ones such as this. And her. Above all, her.

  I stand. My hand is shaking. It’s beginning to sink in. She is dead. I don’t know it for certain yet, but it’s becoming reality. Jalseion has been shaken until anything that could move, did. And someone is using it to cover the murder of Select.

  No--hesitation is delay. Delay is death. I move on.

  I still hear that voice, faint but constant. I force the door to the next room open, the hinges protesting. The floor above is visible. Two more dead, and one alive beneath the rubble. Grigor. He likes tea. That’s all I can remember of him at the moment, all that sticks. He stares up at the third-floor ceiling. His legs are pinned beneath a cabinet. He’s cut somehow; I see blood pooled beneath his lower body. His lips are moving, and sometimes they make noise. I come to him.

  “Do you know where Calea Lisan is?”

  He stares at me, confused. Suddenly, his hand is at my neck, fumbling for my collar.

  “I had a dream,” he says. “I knew I would die this way.”

  I let him speak. I am impatient, but by patience I might get an answer. He is not in his right mind; direct questions will yield nothing.

  “I die with the world,” he mutters. “I cannot even lift my....” He lifts his neck, craning to see his legs. “The power is gone. Can you sense it? Gone. The world is empty. Do you remember what they used to tell us as kids, about the world dying? It’s hollowed out, emptied. I can’t even....” Again, he looks at his legs.

  I understand. A Select should be able to move the cabinet with a push of magic. Shock does strange things. I’ve heard of a mother lifting a car to reach her trapped child; I’ve heard of men going mute after a traumatic experience. Perhaps he is no longer able to reach the magic. My first instinct is to help. My second is that moving the burden would injure him worse.

  My third is that I’ve abandoned so many already. What’s one more?

  “Do you know where Calea is? Calea Lisan? Guide Lisan?”

  His eyes focus on me. “Poor girl. Without magic....”

  “Where is she?”

  “It’s only a matter of time. Everything will waste away now. Everything. The earth is a corpse. The spirit has fled. We should have known. It was bound to happen someday. Today....”

  I stand. It’s useless. I will go where she must be. If she is to be found, it will be in her rooms.

  If she is not there...it doesn’t matter yet. Ifs will kill a man and have.

  I know every passage in all eight Towers. I studied the maps and walked them to be sure. Just in case.

  I don’t know how damaged the rest of the Tower is. I’ll take my chances with the most direct route.

  The nearest stairs are used by the maids who keep the Tower clean. I see it in my head: Down the hall, turn right, fourth door on the left is the stairwell. I am to the turn as quick as conscious thought can recount the location. Dust and plaster fly up as I hurry along the hall. It is oddly preserved, like an old house, dusty and skewed, but largely intact. Footsteps stand out on the filthy carpet.

  Calea’s apartment is on the eighteenth floor. I throw open the stairwell door, rush up the stairs. The steps are steep, the flight narrow. I ascend easily, up, up, but the passage is unnaturally bright. The lights are dead, so it must be the sun. By the sixth floor, I can see the scar above me, a slash that cuts the stairwell in half, opening the column to rooms on either side. I stop at the eighth. Beyond, the steps are twisted by the spasm that has compressed this whole area. Four floors are wedged together, collapsing into one another, but hanging delicately, waiting for a final tickle to destroy the balancing act.

  I return to the seventh and exit. Students live on this floor and the one above. Or lived. I don’t know which, after today. I hear movement, talking, anxious sounds. The nearest classroom is packed with young girls, with three teenage mentors soothing them. The nearest sees me first. She freezes, then boldly asks, “Are you here to help us?”

  “I have someone I need to find.”

  “We need to get these children down.”

  “Use the stairs.”

  All the girls are staring at me now, wide-eyed and fearful. “Is it safe?” the first, the one who has decided to lead, asks. Lowering her voice, she says, “We heard screams. We’ve been waiting for someone to find us, to show us the way....”

  “Yes, it’s safe.” I remember Essendr’s wound. “For now. Don’t stay here. Get to ground level. Get out of the Tower. The stairs are fine.”

  Another of the older girls speaks up. “You’re looking for Guide Lisan.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. I...I just recognized you.”

  It is a strange thing to say. A bodyguard is not meant to be noticed. “How?”

  She turns red. “I just... Guide Lisan lectured in our class one day. You were there. That’s all.” She is embarrassed for some reason. Teen girls are strange creatures.

  “Can one of you power the elevator for me?” It’s a stupid question. They would have tried that first, if they tried anything.

  “It won’t work,” the first says. “Not anymore.”

  “Get out of here. All right?”

  The three leaders nod their heads. So do all the little ones. I am anxious to keep moving. Mentioning the elevator triggered something. Farther down the hallway, the floor is badly damaged, one wall blown out and blocking my way. I work my way over carefully. To head to another elevator would take too much time.

  The mass slips beneath me. The floor shudders. I pause, muscles tense. For a minute I wait. Nothing. I slowly shift my weight, take a step. I move more
slowly now, placing each step carefully. Perhaps there is no floor beneath me, but only wood and steel wedged in a hole.

  I am not quite over the mound when I reach the elevator door. I clear away enough broken material to slide through the opening. The lift is gone, probably in pieces on the first floor. Normally, there is a rope in the center of the shaft, a crude mechanism to prevent injury if some accident or error should happen while a Select manipulates the air pressure in the chamber. Any sudden jerk, and the rope locks up, halting the lift’s downward progression.

  Light filters from above. The rope runs along the right wall. With the top levels of the Tower gone, what is holding the rope? Any number of things, certainly. It must be wedged tight somewhere. This is what I hope. I eyeball the jump. It’ll hold. It will. I launch myself. My calloused hands burn as I catch the rope. It slips a few horrible feet, then holds.

  I do not look forward to the climb. Never again, I tell myself. I have muscle, but I am a heavy man. She will be happy to learn of my pain.

  Hand over hand I pull myself, using my feet against the wall. Eleven levels. My muscles burn after seven. I do not stop to rest. Movement is life. My feet slip, but my arms hold. Eight levels. I have no thought, no emotion. Just pain and mission. Hand over hand. Ten levels. Hand over hand. I would go ten more if it would take me to her. My arms will not fail until I let them; I will not let them.

  I work myself back and forth, pedaling the best I can against the wall, try to work up the speed to reach the shaft entrance. Back and forth, now, back and forth. I will get no closer than I now reach. I release and hang over the darkness for a moment. Then I crash into the door. It does not quite open at my impact, and I snatch the ledge of the threshold with my hand just in time. The bottom of the door is at my fingertips. One-handed, I try to push it open. Something is blocking it.

  I consider. It would be wisest to drop down a level and try that door. Instead, I pull myself up, gripping now the inside frame of the door. Using toeholds and fingertips, I wedge my head into the opening, hoping to force the door with my body. I manage to bring one of my shoulders through. I can see around the door. A discarded suitcase is all that stops my entry, its spilt contents gathered beneath the door, shoes and clothes acting as a doorstop.

  I let out a murmur of a laugh and bully my way through the tight space. She would laugh, too, to see me moving like a cat in a tight space.

  I take a moment to rest on the other side, sparing the time to try the abandoned shoes on. My feet emerge from the old ones with a squelch of blood, but it’s worth it. The new pair is nearly perfect after the vise of the others. My feet are larger than the average man’s.

  This is the elevator near her rooms. I could have pressed on and returned for the shoes. I am afraid to continue and almost unable to admit it.

  Her apartment is demolished. Splinters of furniture and broken glass cover the ground. She is not in the foyer. I think I see blood, but I press on, looking for her body. The bedroom has collapsed into the floor below. I cannot see her in what remains. The living room is pocked with smaller holes, the floor bent like a half-closed book, her possessions collecting in the fold and weighing heavily. I wait, searching with my eyes. The room opens onto the balcony, the frames of the glass door empty. Smoke rises slowly from the city. It’s almost peaceful.

  I retrace my steps before daring my way across the precarious living room floor. I examine the blood more closely. It’s a smear--a trail. Not much, but I can follow it. It leads out of the room.

  She was alive, alive enough to crawl.