The Blue Tower (The Five Towers Book 1), page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by J.B. Simmons
All rights reserved
Cover by Jocker Benitez.
ISBN 978-1386556251
Published in the United States by Three Cord Press
www.jbsimmons.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
THE BLUE TOWER
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
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THE BLUE TOWER
Book One Of The Five Towers
The colors are acts of light; its active and passive modifications: thus considered we may expect from them some explanation respecting light itself.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1
THE FIRST THING I KNOW: I’m treading water.
My legs and arms move by instinct, churning out circles of waves, like I’m a pebble dropped into a still lake. Beyond the ripples stretches a glassy surface into darkness. The air smells briny, with a hint of fish.
I swing my arms through the lukewarm water to turn. Behind me rises a wall as high as I can see. I take two strokes and reach it. I press my hands to the surface, my feet kicking to keep me afloat. My hands look pale and small as I push against the smooth, solid stone. It doesn’t budge.
Panic grips me. Maybe the wall goes all the way around. I look up and see blackness. I peer down through the water. No bottom in sight. No creatures either. Must stay calm and breathe.
When I turn again there’s a tiny dot of light that has appeared in the distance. Where did the light come from? How did I even learn to swim?
Doesn’t matter. Survival, the cruel master, compels me forward. I push off the wall toward the light.
My body aches by the time I glimpse the shore. The light takes shape as a small blue orb by the water’s edge. My strokes quicken. I’m breathing hard as my feet first touch the soft, muddy ground.
I crawl out of the water, then lay on my back, panting. Waves lap steadily at the shore. Beyond that there’s a low rumble of moving air, like an ocean breeze in a cavern.
Then I hear a soft footstep. I open my eyes.
A hooded face gazes down at me. It is old and wrinkled and bearded, with black wire glasses that are barely wide enough to contain two blue eyes.
“Welcome, boy. I’ve been waiting a long time for you.”
I rush to my feet and back away, splashing into the shallows. The man stands still.
“Who are you?” I ask, surprised by the young sound of my voice.
“I’m the leader of this tower.” The blue light moves. It glows from the top of a staff in the old man’s hand.
“What tower?”
“The Blue Tower. Dreadfully damp down here, don’t you think?”
The man’s gentle voice does not comfort me. The staff’s light casts shadows like bruises over the sharp lines of his face. The light does not reach any walls. We’re surrounded by darkness. My hands cover my face, pressing my temples, searching desperately for a memory.
The man steps closer and clasps my shoulder, his hand squeezing gently. The sleeve of his gray robe hangs down below his arm. His silver beard flows down to his waist.
“Give it time,” he says.
I move to his side, keeping my distance. Surely I can outrun him if it comes to it. But then what? Another swim in the dark lake? I shiver at the thought of it.
“You’re cold.” He reaches into his robe and pulls out a folded cloth. He tosses it to me.
The fabric in my hands is plain but soft. I unfold it and discover a gray-blue robe. I’m wearing nothing. I slip on the robe.
“Good,” he says. “We should go before the tide rises.”
“There’s a tide?”
“The sea rises and falls.” He looks past me, into the dark cavern. “Like the towers. But maybe you’ll change that. Blue is due to rise.”
He begins walking away from the water. As I follow him, I realize how small I am. Maybe half his size. Something about it seems off. Either he’s far too big, or I’m far too small.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“This path is long,” he says over his shoulder. “But the slope is gentle. It winds up the whole tower.”
The ground changes from mud to stone. The stones are immense blocks, cool under my bare feet. The path reaches a wall, like the one that was behind me in the water. I feel like the wall has cut off my memories and everything I knew before. Questions are flooding into me and begin to spill out. “How did I get here?”
He pauses and glances back. “You followed someone.”
“Who?”
He turns without answering and continues ahead. We follow the path along the wall, going up. The only light is the pale blue glow from the old man’s staff. His robe swishes from side to side as he climbs.
I followed someone? I don’t even remember anyone. “If you won’t tell me who I followed,” I say, “at least tell me where we’re going.”
“Your room,” he answers, without slowing. “You may rest there, have a bite to eat, before your first class.”
“Class?”
He stoops down, his spectacled eyes level with mine. “Curiosity is good. Probably why you came to Blue first.”
I return his stare. His eyes are bluer than the orb on his staff. Blue like the sky on a sunny day, not like this tower and its dark water and walls.
A hint of a smile appears under his beard. “You’ll be okay here. There’s a way out, unlike the other place you could have gone...” He breathes deeply. “But no looking back now, not yet. First food, then rest, then class. You’ll need your energy for the Scouring.”
“Scouring? What’s that?”
“It’s the only way out.”
2
THE OLD WIZARD LEADS me past dozens of closed doors on the path up through the tower. Most are the same: plain slabs of wood that fit seamlessly into the immense stone wall. Other people must be here, but we do not see a soul. The quiet unnerves me. Maybe others are behind the doors, like this is some kind of prison. Or an asylum. Or worse.
With each turn upward I look for a window, hoping for some glimpse outside. But I see no windows, only the cold stone path circling up and up, coiling around the hollow core that now falls hundreds of feet below, to the place where I began. The hollowness pulls at me, taunting me. The higher we go, the more I keep close to the wall, with my eyes on the ground. My legs feel heavy as lead when we finally stop before one of the doors.
“This is your room,” the wizard says.
The door, like all the others, bears no number and is twice my height. I have no idea how the man knows this door is the right one. He pulls it open without knocking, and motions me inside.
I hesitate.
“You’re tired,” he says. “You will sleep here.”
Past him there’s a small, neat space enclosed in stone, about six paces across. Bed on one side. Desk, chair, and a small empty fireplace on the other. The furniture looks like worn, simple wood. Fresh salty air blows through a square opening in the wall.
A window! I glimpse water and sky outside. My spirits rise.
“You’ll like the view,” he says.
The fresh air lures me forward. I step through the door and stand in the middle of the room, breathing deeper.
“Kiyo will bring food soon.” The man is still in the doorway, holding his staff like he’s ready to cast some spell.
“Why am I here?” I ask.
“Get some rest.” He ducks back through the door and starts to close it.
“Wait.”
He pauses, eyes unreadable behind his glasses.
“Can’t you tell me anything else?”
He taps his staff on the ground. The blue orb glows at the top of it. “I must go now.” His voice is warm but firm. “Kiyo will come. She’ll take care of you.”
The door closes, leaving me alone in the room. I go to the door and find no handle. I push and it doesn’t budge. I push harder. Still nothing. I kneel down and try to wedge my fingers underneath but can’t.
Breathe. Don’t panic.
Kiyo will come, whoever she is.
I move to the chair by the desk.
I drop the feather back into the jar. I have nothing to write.
The room has a bed with a plain white sheet, and underneath there’s a metal pan. I inspect the walls, every corner.
It’s empty. Like my mind.
A rustle of fresh air draws me to the window. It’s an open gap as tall as I am and as wide as my shoulders. The view reveals a spectrum of blues—the bottom half is midnight blue ocean, the middle above the horizon is azure, the top half is cloudy, gray-blue sky.
I reach my arms through the opening and just barely grasp the other edge. The stone wall is as thick as an oak. I pull myself up into the small space, squeezing through head first on my belly. The stone presses against my shoulders. Tight fit, but I manage to inch forward and stick my head out of the window.
A blast of salty wind rushes up into my face. The view down sends my head spinning. The tower’s wall is perfectly smooth until it meets rough stones far below. Waves crash into the black rock, sending sprays of white into the sky. There’s a small, protected cove with a wooden dock and a few boats tied to it, bobbing up and down in the waves. The jagged cliff shore stretches as far as I can see in both directions. A few shrubs and small trees cling to the coast. There’s no other sign of life.
I twist onto my back to look up. More smooth stone goes up and up until the tower ends in a point in the sky. It’s thicker at the bottom and ten times as high as it is wide. It makes me feel small as I lay there, halfway up a tower, stuck between the sea and the sky.
The wind whips at my hair. I close my eyes.
The Blue Tower, the man said. Everything here is blue. My thoughts wind up and around the tower and drift into the cloudy sky above. I have no memories to root me down. I feel like mist that could float anywhere.
Something taps at my feet, making my body jerk reflexively. Eyes wide, I surge up and see a serene face watching me from my room.
It’s a girl.
3
THE GIRL STANDS IN the middle of my room, hands folded innocently in front of her. She looks about twelve years old. She’s wearing a plain gray-blue robe like mine.
“Hi.”
I climb down from the window and stand in front of her, straightening my robe. Her straight black hair and porcelain skin carry a stoic dignity. Her eyes are narrow and dark as night, with flecks of gold like stars. We’re about the same height.
Past her, the door is closed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“It’s the wind. Very loud this high up.” She bows gracefully. “I’m Kiyo. What’s your name?”
“I...don’t know.”
“What would you like to call yourself?” Her voice is small, a whisper compared to the roaring wind outside the tower.
It’s an overwhelming question. I have no name. I need a name. I tuck my hands into the pockets of my robe, thinking. Many words come to me, and somehow I understand how my mind works, neurons firing in my cortex, but this means nothing without memories.
As the moments pass, Kiyo waits. She remains perfectly still and silent. Her expression is impossible to decipher.
Then it hits me.
“Cipher,” I say, testing the word. It fits, like a secret code to others, allowing them to unlock my attention. “You can call me Cipher.”
“Nice to meet you, Cipher.” She moves to the table, where a tray now sits beside the paper and ink jar. She lifts the cover off the tray, revealing a plate of steaming food. “Dinner’s usually the same,” she says. “Seaweed salad. Fish soup.”
“Why?”
“I guess because that’s what we have, being by the ocean. You get used to it. Helps you sleep.”
“Who’s we?”
“Us. Me. The leaders of the Blue Tower.”
“That guy who looks like a wizard?”
She grins, sending a ripple of warmth into the cold and barren room. “His name’s Abram. The other leader is Sarai.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Many Scourings.” Her gaze drops to her feet.
I shake my head, confused. “What’s a Scouring?”
“It’s like a battle between the towers. There are five of them. We use the Scourings to measure time.”
“Oh.” Now the revelations come too quickly. I don’t know where to start with my questions. The room is quiet as we stare at each other, the two of us in this giant tower that apparently fights against other towers and feeds us seaweed. “Do you remember anything before you showed up here?”
She blinks at my question. Her eyes take on an eerie blankness. “Only a little. I’ve been to the Sieve...” Her last word comes out as a whisper.
“The Sieve?”
She backs toward the door. “You should eat, then sleep. Tomorrow will be a big day, your first class.”
“What’s the Sieve?” I step forward, not wanting her to leave.
She bows slightly. “I will see you tomorrow, Cipher.”
“No, wait...”
The words are hardly out of my lips before she quickly opens the door and slips through.
I rush to the door, grabbing for it, but my hand pulls back at the last moment, instinct not letting me stick fingers into the inch-wide gap before it slams shut. The solid slab of wood does not budge when I shove it. I bang my fist on the door and shout for Kiyo.
There is no answer. The wind howls outside the window.
How did she open the door? It must be possible.
Trying not to panic again, I sit down at the table and stare at the food. Abram said Kiyo would come, and she did. Kiyo said she would see me tomorrow, so maybe she will.
The smell of the food convinces me to try a bite. The fish soup tastes good. The seaweed not so much. But I devour all of it, then slide the tray away.
The paper still sits on the table. The blob of ink with the three circles I drew around it looks up at me. My fingers rub along the feather’s soft edge, then pull it from the jar. I write down seven words:
Cipher
Kiyo
Abram
Scouring
Sieve
Blue Tower
It’s a start. I hold the quill ready above the paper, hoping some deep-down memory will come to me. My eyes close. What happened before I was treading water at the base of the tower? I know that people are born as babies to mothers. They don’t suddenly appear in lakes. But I can’t remember my mother, my father, or anything else. I put the feather back in the jar and move away from the desk.
The bed looks inviting. My head rests on the soft white fabric. My eyelids are heavy. As the sound of the ocean lulls me to sleep, the words Scouring and Sieve tumble over and over in my mind like grains of sand in the waves.
4
THE SMELL OF BREAD and brine wakes me. I sit up in bed, the ocean air pulling goosebumps out of my skin. A small loaf and cup are on the table. The door is closed, no one in sight. The bumps along my skin rise higher. Someone has been in the room.
I feel like I’ve slept for days. I remember waking up in the water, in the dark. The wizard, Abram, brought me to this room, and Kiyo brought me food. Still I remember nothing from before the tower.
My stomach rumbles. I try the bread, and it’s not bad. A bit stale, a bit cool. I wash it down with the water. I’m chewing my last bite when the door opens.
It’s Kiyo. She enters smoothly, with her hands folded in front of her just like yesterday. “Good morning, Cipher.”
I motion to the empty plate. “Did you bring the food?”
She shakes her head no. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I’m already moving to the door. No way she’s leaving again without me. But of course the door doesn’t budge when I push it.
Kiyo looks amused. “I felt the same way.”
I study her as she turns to the closed door. She presses her hand to a stone beside it. Nothing moves. Her hand is still, her face concentrated. Then there’s a click.
The door swings open.
I quickly step outside. A wooden bar has lifted on the other side. I turn back to Kiyo. “How’d you do that?”
