Chapter 50 — The Sleeping War Tower

Chapter 50: Chapter 50 — The Sleeping War Tower

Chapter 50 — The Sleeping War Tower

Edwin read Captain Taron’s new price twice.

"Three additional gold?"

"For entering an active magical site," Taron said.

"You already knew we might find one."

"I knew you hoped to find one. Hope doesn’t trigger formations."

They sat beside the fire in the ruined outer station. The sealed door waited underground. Edwin could pay the price, but doing so would consume most of his remaining reserve.

"Two gold," he said. "And ordinary salvage from the outer station."

Taron turned to Nessa.

"The station has corroded iron and roof tiles," she said. "If we carry them fifty miles, we’ll become rich in back pain."

They settled at two gold and six silver. The company would enter the first chamber, protect Edwin while he examined the site and withdraw at the first active defense. Further exploration required another decision.

Nobody pretended the agreement made the tower safe.

In Alvion, Edwin pressed the damaged book against the underground door.

The broken-circle symbol lit beneath its cover. Edwin supplied Mana carefully, expecting the spirit to whisper another fragment. Instead, a clear voice spoke inside the passage.

"Emergency vessel recognized."

The mercenaries raised their weapons.

"Is that your spirit?" Taron asked.

"I think so."

The door opened.

Cold blue light appeared in strips along the floor. Beyond lay a circular chamber with six dark passages. Stone figures stood beside each entrance: broad humanoid constructs with four arms and blank faces.

None moved.

At the center of the room, a human skeleton slumped against a control pedestal. One hand rested beside an empty crystal socket. A metal badge remained pinned to its decayed clothing.

Edwin stopped at the threshold.

The book pulled against his hands. Not physically: Mana streamed from its cover toward the pedestal, thin and unstable, and the room’s lights brightened one by one.

Captain Taron seized Edwin’s collar and kept him from stepping farther.

"Wait here."

They watched the golems.

One turned its head.

The fighters raised their shields.

The golem looked at the book, then lowered itself onto one knee. The others remained still. The skeleton beside the pedestal did not move.

Edwin crossed only after Nessa checked the floor. He approached the dead caretaker and found a metal plate beneath its hand. The old writing was difficult, but the final lines had been carved deeply enough to survive.

The tower had failed to depart. Its realm-crossing formation lacked power. The surviving personnel had evacuated. One caretaker remained to preserve the tower and await the return of its spirit vessel.

No one returned.

Edwin placed the book in a slot atop the pedestal.

Light filled the chamber. A small figure appeared above the book: the shape of a young woman no taller than Edwin’s hand, formed from pale blue light. Translucent wings opened behind it: not natural wings, but lines resembling pages turning.

Its eyes focused slowly.

"Home," it said.

The kneeling golem opened two of its four hands. A narrow probe, gripping claw and brush extended from its fingers; it had entered a maintenance posture and waited for orders it lacked the power to perform. The other five constructs did not respond at all.

Edwin’s attention moved to the dark corridors. Faded labels marked them as records, workshops, quarters, defenses, storage and the realm engine. The tower had not been built only for study. It had been a fortress capable of carrying mages and weapons beyond their world.

Nothing behind those passages opened. The tower recognized Edwin’s authority, but empty power lines kept its sealed systems dormant.

Edwin waited for answers. The spirit looked around the dark passages and kneeling golem.

"Primary power exhausted. Reserve power exhausted. Realm engine inactive. Defensive network dormant. Maintenance network..."

Its voice faltered. One of the chamber lights went dark.

"...available at minimum function."

The fairy-shaped image sat heavily on the edge of the book.

Taron lowered his sword by an inch. "Powerful tower."

Edwin surveyed the empty crystal sockets, the dormant golems and the six unlit passages.

"It was."

The spirit raised its head.

"It remains," it said.

The tower spirit had no name it could remember.

Its fairy-shaped image sat on the book while Edwin asked simple questions. How many floors did the tower possess? Which passages were safe? What had happened to its power?

The answers came slowly.

"Twenty-three primary levels," it said. "Auxiliary levels unavailable."

"Unavailable because they are damaged?"

"Status unavailable."

"How much power remains?"

The spirit looked offended. "Insufficient."

Captain Taron snorted.

The first chamber stayed lit only while Edwin fed Mana through the book, and he could maintain the connection for several minutes before his Mental Palace began to ache. When he stopped, four of the six passages went dark, and a single blue line remained between the control pedestal and the kneeling maintenance golem.

The golem rose. It stood taller than Taron, with four arms built for tools rather than weapons. Dust fell from its joints. It took one step toward the nearest wall, stopped and waited.

"What’s it doing?" Edwin asked.

"Awaiting power allocation."

"Can it repair the tower?"

"It can repair the tower."

"Then tell it to begin."

"The available power is not enough."

Edwin was beginning to dislike that word.

The spirit explained in fragments. The tower’s central reserves were empty. Emergency stores had been consumed during the failed departure. The realm-crossing engine had drawn power from every secondary system before shutting down. What remained was enough for recognition, a few lights and one maintenance golem at minimum function.

It possessed authority over the entire tower and needed energy to use it.

Edwin asked whether the spirit could draw Mana from the air. It could, but the tower’s gathering formation was among the systems disconnected by damaged conduits. The book had survived by collecting tiny amounts over decades and spending them on brief moments of awareness.

"How long to fill the tower that way?" he asked.

The spirit stared at him. "Unknown. Longer than current structural projections."

"The tower will collapse first?"

"Some sections."

Edwin wrote three tasks on a page: inspect conduits, locate the secondary reserve and stabilize the structure.

The skeleton beside the pedestal belonged to the final caretaker. Edwin removed nothing until the spirit confirmed the remains carried no active seal. A metal badge identified the caretaker’s station, though the name had corroded away.

Beneath one hand lay a thin record plate, which the spirit translated.

The tower had received orders to follow the departing Mage forces beyond the plane. Its realm engine began the crossing sequence, then failed when damage in the lower conduits caused an uncontrolled drain. The tower master and remaining personnel evacuated after attempts to repair it exhausted the reserve.

The caretaker stayed behind to preserve the tower and wait for the portable spirit vessel.

"Why was the vessel outside?" Edwin asked.

The fairy touched the cover beneath it. "Emergency record vessel. Carried to departure assembly. Return expected."

"Who carried the book away from the tower?"

"Memory damaged."

The book had somehow travelled from the departure force into Alvion’s archives, where it slept until Edwin found it. The person who carried it never returned.

They wrapped the caretaker’s remains in clean cloth. Taron advised waiting until the spirit identified whether the tower had a designated resting place. Edwin agreed.

"Maintenance level," it said. "Memorial chamber."

That passage remained dark.

The second contract allowed entry into the first accessible area, not the entire tower. Taron kept two veterans at the surface station and one at the underground door. Nessa marked their route. The two Black Iron fighters stayed beside Edwin whenever he powered a system.

They tested the six passages one at a time. The defense passage would not open. Neither would storage, workshops or the realm engine. The quarters door moved several inches before sticking against fallen stone.

The records door opened.

Cold blue light travelled into a hall lined with shelves. Most disappeared into darkness. The nearest rows held metal tablets, sealed scroll cases and crystal plates. Dust lay thick over everything except a narrow strip where the floor formation had briefly awakened.

Edwin stepped forward.

Taron caught the back of his robe.

"We check the floor first, Master Edwin," Taron said.

Nessa checked for holes, wires and disturbed dust. One Black Iron fighter tapped each stone with the butt of his spear. Only then did they enter.

The library was larger than the entire lower archive where Edwin once worked. Balconies rose through at least four visible levels. Ladders rested on metal rails. At the center stood six reading tables surrounded by dark crystal lamps.

"Show me the library catalogue," Edwin said.

The spirit raised one hand. A single panel flickered above the nearest table, filled with old script.

Then it vanished.

Edwin’s knees weakened. Taron pushed him into a chair before he fell.

"Mana depletion," the spirit said.

"I noticed when my legs stopped holding me."

He had supplied less power than a single low-grade crystal could hold, yet the tower had consumed it across conduits built to carry far more.

They searched without activating anything. The first shelves contained maintenance records and travel logs rather than spells. Edwin found references to campaigns, supply movements and other war towers, though he could not read the old script, and the spirit lacked enough power to translate entire tablets.

One crystal plate showed a map when held near the book. Points of light marked towers across the continent. Most were dark. Three far to the east still glowed faintly in the old record, though the plate could not show whether they survived in the present.

Edwin copied the positions by hand.

Another table held travel reports from worlds beyond their own. Edwin recognized repeating diagrams of twin moons, unfamiliar stars and plants drawn beside measurement columns. He understood almost none of the text.

The discovery made the failed realm engine real. This tower had once travelled beyond the Large Plane — or had at least prepared to do so. Restoring that ability would require more than inserting a handful of crystals.

The spirit could not estimate the necessary energy while the engine remained disconnected, though it did remember that the crossing consumed more power than every weapon in the tower firing together.

Captain Taron heard that and looked relieved the engine was dead.

The armory tempted Taron more than the library, but its door remained without power. He accepted that more easily than Edwin accepted unreadable shelves.

They returned to the control chamber after an hour.

"What can power the tower?" Edwin asked.

"Mana crystals. Elemental cores. Connected Mana source. Functioning reactor."

"Is the reactor damaged?"

"Status unavailable."

"Where is the reactor located?"

"Lower engineering."

That passage could not yet open.

The maintenance golem could inspect the nearest conduit if given enough energy. Edwin possessed two low-grade crystals for spell practice and emergencies. Using both might allow a basic inspection, or it might merely illuminate more corridors.

He used one.

The golem accepted the crystal into its chest. Blue light moved through its four arms. It opened a wall panel and began removing centuries of dust, corroded fittings and dead insects from the conduit behind it.

The work was slow and entirely ordinary. It cleaned before it repaired.

"How long will the inspection take?" Edwin asked.

"At present power, nine hours."

The crystal would last only three.

The spirit adjusted the order, so the golem inspected rather than cleaned, and found two broken links and one intact line leading toward a secondary reserve room.

The golem brought back a corroded connector. Edwin held it near the spirit, which projected the original shape above the broken metal. Replacing it required magically conductive silver alloy, precise shaping and an artificer’s tools.

Edwin possessed none of those.

"Can an ordinary smith make it?" he asked.

"An ordinary smith cannot make it."

"Could I shape the replacement myself?"

"Not presently."

The spirit did not soften answers to protect his pride. Edwin found that useful.

Edwin ended the inspection there and resealed the record chamber. The tower spirit returned to the book when the control lights faded, its fairy shape collapsing into a small point of blue.

Outside, late sunlight covered the ruined station.

Taron studied Edwin. "Will you report this to the academy, Master Edwin?"

"I won’t report it yet."

"If word spreads, the tower will attract more than librarians."

"It cannot cross a room without power."

"Men will still kill for the chance that it might, Master."

Edwin knew that. He also knew he lacked money, crystals and people capable of repairing ancient magical systems. Keeping the tower secret protected his discovery while preventing him from restoring it.

For the moment, the mercenary contract and sixty-day silence clause were all he had.

His gaze lingered on the station. The tower had waited centuries for its spirit. It could wait a few more days while he decided whom to trust.

Before sleeping, Edwin copied the caretaker’s record in both the old script and the spirit’s translation. If the tower lost power again, he wanted the warning preserved somewhere that did not depend on a damaged magical intelligence. The spirit approved without complaint.

It had waited too long for someone to begin keeping records again.