Chapter 12: The Astronomy Tower

Lya found Osette outside that night, struggling to read and mark up a map by lantern-light. This was one of her favorite past-times. More than often it was to help whatever expedition they were undertaking next.
“Whatcha doing?”
Osette looked up, but didn't say anything. She turned back to her work.
“Those markings, are those roads to Zamasea?”
Still no response.
“Are you trying to figure out which one's the safest?”
“I am not talking to you.”
That was what she had been afraid of, but it didn't make the words sting any less. “Osette, don't you still want us to be together?”
“I don't know.” Osette's markings became slightly more erratic. “Shouldn't come with us tomorrow. It's not safe.”
“What?” Lya couldn't believe it. “Why?”
“It's not safe.”
“It's not going to be safe for any one of us,” said Lya, “I can fight. I can protect you.”
“You said I had to be the one to protect you one day. Maybe that starts today.”
Lya felt herself tearing up again and had to take a sharp breath to keep that from happening. She couldn't be doing this all the time. “Not like this,” she said.
Osette didn't say anything to that. And Lya knew there wasn't going to be any point in talking to her further. She had shut down.
A kind of zapping sound made her turn her head. Marc, Icelus and Remont all stood there, grasping books and weapons and all kinds of other materials.
“We're back!” said Remont. “It looks like Piper didn't go through our stuff while we were gone.”
Lya got up and took the three metal polearms from Remont to lighten his load. They had served everyone well in the past and it would be good to have them. “So Marc's teleportation worked?”
“Perfectly!” said Marc excitedly. “It doesn't even use up any of the psychic energy I got from the crystal. I already had the power, I just couldn't figure out how to use it.”
“And now that you have perfect memory you can?”
Marc nodded. “Just have to remember my mental state from the other times I did it. It's no problem now.”
Icelus and Remont had walked off to store their supplies, so Lya decided to go with Marc. “So, Marc,” she said as they walked toward the tent where he stayed, “what's it like? Going from fallible memory to perfect recall.”
“It feels kind of... refreshing? Like every decision was a struggle before, I was working off cloudy information. Now I can just... remember. That doesn't even sound like the right word, though.”
“No,” she said, “Memories are always imperfect. Parts are cut out. Things are exaggerated. What you can do now is... seeing. You can see your past, as clearly and as vividly as your present.”
“That's exactly it,” he said. “Plus the fear is gone.”
“The fear?”
“The irrational fear. The nervousness. Especially around Icelus. She was... a big fear of mine when I was little. And you never get over those childhood fears. They just drag at the back of your mind.”
“Unless you can actually remember them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It's funny – seeing things properly makes them so much less scary. Would you ever want to have an imperfect memory?”
“I've never known anything outside what I have. I'm going to stick with what I know. But...”
Marc smirked. “But what?”
“...but I've seen memories fade and turn into something nicer. Sometimes the stories people construct give them a purpose. Makes them feel like it was all worth something. I've seen humans forgive each other for terrible things, and I've seen them move on and make it all better. And the fear is part of that, too. Sometimes fear makes us do impossible, great, kind things. Sometimes we can use fear. You don't get that when your memories are always right there. I wouldn't push it away so easily.”
Marc smiled, impressed. “I hadn't thought of it that way. It's all new to me right now. I can do so many things now that I couldn't before. But... well, you've given me something to think about, at least.”
“Good. I don't mean to say that you'd be better off as a human, though. Humans and nightmares, they're not better or worse. They're just different ways to be.”
“I see that now. Hm... you know what, the fear? I bet that'll happen to Osette.”
“What?”
He laughed. “She'll forgive you. I think she already wants to. What could inspire forgiveness faster than the fear of being alone, right? You just have to give her some time.”
Lya sighed. “We may not have that much time. She doesn't want me to go with everyone to the Adjoining Festival tomorrow.”
“Whaaaat?”
“It's true.”
“Damn! Well... I want you to come with us.”
She lightly smiled. “Is that going to be enough?”
“I'm sure Remont and Icelus do, too. You're the one who knows how to do everything. We couldn't work without you.”
“Thanks, Marc. I'm glad you're all up for throwing me into danger.”
“Aww, shut up. Just don't try any more spell circles and you'll be fine.”
They arrived at a small tent where Marc was staying. One of the villagers – the giant slug that he had been put off by earlier, actually, though not so much now – had offered to let him stay the night. Marc didn't expect to get much of a restful sleep, but he could at least put some of this junk in the tent for now.
Waiting for them outside was Icelus. “Oh!” said Marc, “done with your packing?”
“Wasn't carrying much,” she replied, “no opposable thumbs.”
“Right.”
Lya opened the tent flap and gently laid the polearms down. “That's that. Do you need some help, Marc?”
“No, I got it. Thanks, Lya.”
She nodded. “I guess I'll see you all tomorrow morning. Sleep as well as you can,” she said, and went off.
“Marc, I'll make this quick, because you need some rest,” said Icelus, “But I just wanted to make sure you were ready. I know it can't be easy to go through the Catharsis Ritual, but... you're our only shot.”
Marc knelt down to meet her eyes. “As ready as I'll ever be. We don't now what we're really up against. We don't know if Piper has something up his sleeve. It could be a wash. We're kinda fighting uphill here. But,” he said, clenching his fist, “we owe it to everyone on both worlds to try our best. Right?”
“Right. Thank you...” she looked down, “...so much. If I'd known all this was going to happen that night that I first asked for your help..”
“I would've said yes anyway,” he replied.
She couldn't look at him. She was so proud and happy. “Get some sleep,” was all she said.
“Yes, ma'am.” He patted her on the head and went inside the tent.

The road from Agremonth to Zamasea hadn't seen a single soul cross it since Icelus had been broken out. This made it the ideal place for the group to materialize – weapons in tow, and hauling three sphere-cycles.
“I can't believe they didn't just take these,” remarked Lya.
“Or post anyone in the mansion,” said Icelus.
Remont mounted his vehicle and checked the engines. “The Chief was having trouble getting people for guard duty,” he said, “I'm not surprised.”
“So there might not be many people on the lookout for us?” asked Marc. The idea made him feel a lot better; this whole plan was down to him and he was looking for any reassurance that it might not be that hard after all.
“Maybe,” said Remont, “but we don't know what Piper has up his sleeve.”
“And he has something up his sleeve, mark my words,” said Icelus.
The road from Agremonth joined up with a major road on the way to the town, so they could blend in with the incoming crowd – there would be many visitors from all over Oniron coming for the Adjoining Festival. Sure enough, after a mile of driving (Icelus still complained about the sidecar on Remont's cycle) they found a whole caravan of travelers – mostly on foot, but some of them were riding strange lizardlike quadrupeds that behaved a lot like horses, and others still had wagons. Their plan to blend in, then, was misconceived; they stuck out horribly on their automobiles. All they could do was duck their heads down and try not to talk to anyone.
The town drew larger and larger on the horizon, until they could see the entrance.
“Wait,” said Remont, “what are those things checking people?”
They could all see them now: at every entrance to the town, accosting the line of visitors flowing in, were hulking monsters – some were vaguely animalistic, like the giant rhinoceroses, and then there were some that were only vaguely humanoid, like the orange demonic-looking thing that was guarding the entrance they were headed to. They halted the groups, checked them up and down, and only then did they let some through. Others still they turned away, leaving a large amount of loudly complaining tourists just outside the city limits.
“Nightmares,” said Lya. “They've got nightmares doing security for the Festival.”
Remont gawked. “How? Surely nobody in the city approved of that.”
“I don't know,” she responded. “Maybe he overruled the rest of the city council.”
“Maybe he's not planning on being chief much longer,” said Icelus. “This is our last chance, so it's his last stand. He's pulling out all the big guns.”
“Hey, guys,” said Osette. “We're getting close. We're getting close, what do we do?”
“They'll have told these nightmares what we look like,” said Remont.
“Not me,” said Marc immediately.
Remont turned to him, surprised. “Not you?”
“No,” said Marc. “Piper may or may not know we have a fifth member, but he's definitely never gotten a good look at me. He knows everyone else. If anyone can slip into the Festival unnoticed, it's me.”
Nobody had anything to say about this. They looked at each other uneasily. “Marc,” said Icelus, “are you sure about this? You'll be all alone in there.”
“Totally sure,” he said. “This would be one of those things I was afraid of before, but... not anymore, you know?”
She was unconvinced. Osette seemed to approve, though. “Okay,” she said, “you should do it.”
Marc smiled. “Osette, do you know if there's a good place with a view of the portal, once it shows up?”
Osette scratched her chin in thought. “Ahhh.... any place, I guess,” she said, “but if you get to the top of the astronomy tower? Straight shot. Guaranteed.”
Marc nodded. “I saw it when we were far off. Easy to find. Okay, guys, you can leave this to me.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “I don't like this.”
“I do,” he said blithely, “but if I run into trouble I'll make a ruckus so you guys know.”
Icelus wanted to protest, but she got cut off by Remont. “Marc, we'll be right there keeping track. Send up a magic flash or something if you're in trouble, promise us.”
“I promise.”
“Good luck.” And the other four disengaged from the line and parked over distantly to get a view of the whole town. Marc turned around and took a deep breath. He was almost to the front of the line.
There were two nightmares guarding either side of the road that led into the city. One of them was the demon-looking one – Marc decided to go for the other one, a large leopard. When he got to the front of the line, the nightmare looked him up and down. “Are you alone?” it asked.
“Yes,” answered Marc.
“Name?”
“Marc Spall.”
“Are you armed, Marc Spall?”
Marc hadn't taken any of the polearms with him, fortunately. He had nothing but his clothes. And his magic, but they didn't need to know about that. “I'm not armed,” he said.
The leopard nightmare looked him over and announced that he was going to be searched. Marc got a pat-down – some things didn't change between worlds, it seemed – and a few pokes from a nasty-looking knife. Marc hoped he wouldn't have to deal with that knife if it came to a fight. He smelled the leopard's warm, rank breath as he was examined, but he didn't shiver or flinch.
The nightmare seemed to be satisfied. “Go on in,” it said. “By the way, we're looking for some fugitives. One man, maybe two, and two women. They're traveling with a small dog. If you see them, report it to the nearest guard immediately.”
Marc nodded. “Will do.”
And then he walked on by. He was home free.
Until his arm was roughly grabbed by the nightmare again. “Wait,” it said. Then it took a deep sniff of Marc.
Its eyes shot to him and became excited. “You smell like Icelus.”
Marc had to try his best not to twitch his face, not to act surprised. “Who's Icelus?”
The leopard nightmare didn't answer. Instead he turned to the other guard and called to him. “Vaster! Come over here!”
The second guard had blotchy orange skin and a bull-like snout and horns. He was examining another visitor, but when he heard his name being called he shoved them off and walked towards them. “What is it, Myrn?” he asked the leopard.
“This one,” said Myrn, “has Icelus's scent all over him. There was another man with them. Does he fit the description?”
“Wasn't much of a description,” said Vaster, “but we should let Piper take a good look at him.”
“Come with us, boy,” said Myrn, roughly pulling Marc aside, “and don't try anything.”
Well, that didn't take long.
Channeling the psychic energy was as simple as breathing – Marc balled his hand into a fist, swung, and in the same moment willed a burst of energy to explode from the end, and it did so. He caught Myrn squarely in the rib, and before anyone knew what was going on, the leopard was flying through the air, and then slammed against a building.
There was only an angry yell from Vaster before Marc swiveled around and delivered a kick to his chest, which sent him airborne too.
There were shouts of alarm from the crowd, but the two guards were totally incapacitated. Marc had never been any sort of martial artist, but with his perfect memory he had instantaneously drawn on every kind of fighting he had seen, in television and in movies. It wasn't perfect – good technique was obviously down to practice – but it was good enough.
“Marc!”
It was Remont's voice. He looked around and noticed the four others driving up in the sphere-cycles. The crowd shouted and scattered as they drove up. “What happened?”
“Well, the cover's blown already,” said Marc. “One of them smelled Icelus on me.”
“Damn.” Remont saw Myrn staggering to his feet and rushed over, took out his polearm and held it to the nightmare's throat. “How many guards are in the city?”
Myrn snarled at Remont. “Dozens and dozens. You can't fight 'em all yourself.”
Remont didn't answer that. Instead he pressed the polearm down harder and asked, “Why are you guarding the city?”
“Piper and Canis found us yesterday. Took us here, gave us orders.”
“What's he offering you?”
“A bit of power,” said Myrn, “He said we wouldn't have to worry about surviving again.”
Then, from off in the distance, came a mass of stomping feet and violent beings. Myrn laughed. “That'll be other guards. Hope you're ready for a fight.”
“We are,” said Marc. He stood facing the town proper, where the rest of Piper's guards were out of sight but rapidly approaching.
“Marc,” said Icelus, “what are you doing?”
Marc's eyes were closed and he seemed to be concentrating very hard. “Just let me know when they're in sight. As many of them as possible.”
He didn't have to wait long – in a few seconds, twenty or thirty guards came filing around the corner and charging towards them. Lya and Osette gasped.
“Here!” shouted Icelus. “They're coming!”
“Okay,” said Marc calmly, “watch this.”
He opened his eyes, just barely. His vision swam and everything looked vague. To him, the guards looked more like one gelatinous mass than thirty distinct beings. In fact, you could just about imagine ten or fifteen people filling the same amount of space.
Which is what he did. Ten or fifteen, he thought, ten or fifteen.
And then Marc opened his eyes wide, and the world snapped into focus, and suddenly there were only about half of the guards left that there were before. He could feel everyone else's shock – it must have looked really strange to them. The advancing guards stopped and looked around, wondering where half their force had gotten to.
“Okay,” said Marc, “I cut them down as much as I could.”
“What did you do?” asked Remont.
“Same thing I did after the Wanderlust crashed. I focused. Looked at the world in a new way. Revealed new things. There aren't as many now. Remont, Osette, Lya, do you think you can take on some of them?”
They all nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, then. Let's get 'em.”
And he launched himself into their midst – just kicked his foot against the ground and sent himself sailing and then there he was, surrounded by hostile, confused guards.
He wasted no time attacking them, sending his limbs flying and trusting the magic he had to connect. Every hit he felt acutely, and everything he saw he could immediately remember – he never lost track of where any of his enemies were. Remont, Osette and Lya were there, too, smacking the guards around the head, twisting them, throwing them. Marc was pulling most of the weight but the fight was much easier with their help.
“Retreat!” he heard one shout, and the guards did so, wriggling out of their positions or getting up from where they had fallen and heading back to... somewhere.
Marc found himself not surrounded anymore, and dropped to the ground, breathing heavily. He was safe, though – no bruises, no cuts, no broken anything. This magic power was awesome.
“Marc!” It was Icelus.
He turned to see her running up to him. “Pretty cool, right?”
She didn't look convinced. She looked a bit angry, actually. “Marc, you only have so much psychic energy. You can't go around using it up. What if you run out before the portal opens?”
What? That was stupid. Marc shook his head. “I know how much I have, and it's more than enough. I'm running on a full tank, still.”
“And do you know how much it will take to send a memory through?”
He slumped. “No. How much?”
“I don't know!” Icelus stamped her feet in frustration. “That's why you have to be careful. Conserve it!”
“I know what I can and can't do, Icelus,” Marc near-shouted at her, “I'm okay. I'm not afraid anymore.”
She frowned and huffed at him, but didn't say anything. That was as good as he was going to get. “Okay,” said Marc, standing up, “I think we should try to blend in again, if possible. Yeah?”
“Good idea,” said Lya. “Everyone see the astronomy tower? Let's try to make our way towards that.”
They all approved. Abandoning the sphere-cycles, but keeping the polearms, the five of them ducked into a side street and tried to make themselves look as inconspicuous as possible. They hadn't seen Piper yet, and couldn't know what he was up to, and that was nothing but a bad sign.

“Is everyone here?”
It was cramped up here – Piper had gotten the services of nearly fifty guards and thirty-five of them were here at the top floor of the astronomy tower.
He stood in the center of them all, glowering. Disappointed, but he expected this outcome, at least a little bit. “I need someone who was there – just one person, please – to clearly describe what happened.”
One voice rose above the rabble – it was Vaster. “It was some boy. He had this huge psychic power that he used to beat us all. And then when reinforcements arrived he just made half of them... disappear. And then the rest got picked off.”
“We're lucky we could retreat,” another one spoke up, a rather grotesque-looking human this time. “But you didn't say we'd have to deal with anything like that.”
Piper scowled. “I didn't make any guarantees as to what you would or wouldn't be facing,” he said, “but fortunately I'm ready for this. Plan C,” he turned to Canis, sitting by his side, wearily.
The crowd of nightmares packed in a little tighter to hear his plan, but Piper didn't say another word. Instead he crouched down and put his hand to the ground. This should have been a warning to them, but nobody realized what was happening until it was too late.
The floor underneath them glowed – a pattern emerged. None of them had noticed the markings, but they realized soon that they were standing inside a spell circle.
There was only time to cry out briefly before the assembled horde of nightmares dissolved, becoming unnaturally twisted and losing their shape, separating into molecules and atoms, and then into psychic energy, which then flowed into the center.
Piper stood up, feeling more powerful than he ever had before. He looked at his hands. They almost sizzled and crackled with the raw force available to him. He looked at Canis. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” replied Canis.
“Good.” Piper strode to one end of the tower and threw open a set of double doors. “Stay here. Keep safe. If anyone gets up here, you can defend yourself now.”
“Are you going to find Icelus?” asked Canis.
Piper was on a balcony now, the tallest point in the city. He could see nearly every building, every street, every alley. They couldn't hide from him for long. “Yes,” he said, “she won't know what hit her.”
And with a leap, he was off, floating in midair, electricity crackling all around him, ready to finish the fight.


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