The Tower of the Forgotten by Sara M. Harvey

Author:Sara M. Harvey [Harvey, Sara M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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7 —

TWO ROADS LED FROM THE CEMETERY, one a silver-grey packed gravel road not unlike a street in the living world, and the other a narrow track that began beneath a latticed arch covered over with sinister vines.

Kitty motioned to the archway, a hazy fog oozing toward them. "It’s a shortcut."

Unconvinced, Portia and Imogen exchanged a worried glance, but Radinka reassured them. "I’ve been this way before. It isn’t pretty, but it’ll take us right to the tower."

Kitty nodded. "Lord Alaric had it created to get there easily. His sister, wasn’t it?"

"Yes, Lady Analise, from the convent."

"She’s here, too?" Portia’s heart fluttered.

"Well, not right now. She’s gone with him to the tower. What’s left of her has, anyway."

"Lovely."

Kitty shrugged. "I was honestly surprised he didn’t wake me, but he was in a terrible rush. So much so I could hear him in my sleep."

"I wonder what’s happened," Imogen said.

"He wasn’t ready for the gates to open. That’s all I know."

"We’d better get out there." Portia looked at the hairpin in her hand and sighed, tucking it into her own bun. "Let’s go."

Kitty led the way with Portia at her side. Radinka and Kendrick flanked Imogen as they followed the narrow path beneath the arch. The fog enclosed them almost immediately, snuffing out all sound where there had been little to begin with. They saw nothing around them except the swirling fog, but had the sensation of crossing a very high, very narrow bridge.

Then the mist cleared, and they found themselves on the edge of the cast circle not far from Portia’s pavilion. On the spirit side, the circus grounds glowed with an intensity that kept even Portia from looking directly at it. She squinted around the brilliance and looked toward the tower; the shadow of something hung in its corona.

The engine growled beneath the ground and the waves.

"Let’s go around." Portia led them past the edges of the circus, keeping to where the midway had once been. She passed Aseneth’s little shanty but did not stop to investigate. They descended the steep and crumbly cliffs that melted into dunes before sweeping into a wide beach that reached the sea. Before them, the bridge glimmered. In the living world it was a garish thing of iron, rope, and wood, strung with sodden ribbons and tattered prayer banners. Here, it rose effortlessly above the surf, held aloft with what looked like spider web. The shrine that had been created around the spring remained, but the spring itself—a shining fountain of sweet water bubbling up from the opalescent stones on one side—oozed a strange mix of sickly soul-light and ichor.

Imogen gagged. "So many people have drunk from that cursed spring!"

"That’s the least of our concern, presently." Portia pointed toward the shifting darkness of the sky. A large zeppelin hung behind the tower, bathed in its bluish light. Mooring ropes draped down from it to a post near the roofline. The hum of its engines could barely be heard beneath the din from the great machine below.

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