The Tower by Loren Atalko
She opens her eyes to the amber light of the furnace. It feels like it's been an eternity here. The other girls are still here too, their bodies laid strewn about the flat stone floor. Each of them, a perfect ceramic cast of one another. Their souls still dance it would seem, reflecting
dully through those slow-blinking glass eyes of theirs. She could see her own fate there and in that moment something changed. The warm light of the furnace burned uncomfortably. The bent bars near the ceiling inspired something new in these fervent circumstances.
Through the dark hallway and up the stone steps she strode softly. Each step feels cool compared to the amber furnace she had just retreated from. Caustics bounce on the wall beside her, a memory of the lukewarm pool just down the steps. Her only thoughts were of seeing the moonlight from the top of the tower and of guilt for not going back to save them. Maybe there was nothing there to save. She would not be warden of their lingering grace any longer. With liquid
distorted vision she paced each new step against the far and few torches.
The winding passageway kept stretching in front of her. The mismatched stonework was markedly blue gray vs the dull saffron light of the sconces. Everything seems dull here. Curving and curving and curving and curving and then a clock ticking could be heard. Finally something new, anything new. As she rounded what seemed like the thousandth bend she saw it there. A gilded walnut clock with a clicking pendulum. As she approached she remarked at how odd it
was that the ticking was all she could hear. Where had the soft flickering of the sconces gone? Her lifting gaze abruptly yanked back by a single loud ring, warping and bouncing. Her footing slickened like mud. The upward path called even harder than before.
Each bend gradually presented more and more mismatched ticking. The sound, asynchronous and distorted. This cluttered passage was now flooded with beautiful ornate wooden machines. Floor to ceiling was plastered hardly even leaving room for the ever swinging pendulums. The racket occluded even her own mind. A sea of saturated woodgrain and gilded pendulums so vast it nearly smothered the already weak light. Mud to oil as she peered at a clock face trying to make sense of what lay in front of her and witnessed a dripping slurry where numbers had once been. Long slender ceramic legs pronounced a question, and found an answer in the amber furnace from which they came. The sound of a deep crackling fire burned away the ticking if but for a moment.
The sprint would not end. Steps became unceasing. Only one gilded terror now. A new bend and a new clock. A new bend and the same clock? Her sprint unbothered by the query, the amber light was almost at her fingertips. A small knot in the wood grain. Ceramic skin, a kiln hearth, and the dull glean of their eyes. A small knot in the wood grain. *A soaring crane's flight fractured like glass and fell to earth. Palm collided and splintered working its way up her right forearm. Small movements of silver light under a ceramic skin canyon. Her stained eyes looked up as the never ending descent looked back. Charcoal darkness was only stayed by the feeble torch and now the girl, glacial. Her indecision vanishes as a flickering light gleaned off the black beaded eye of the giant crow silently gliding up the steps. Shrouded in night the haunting crow approached. A panoramic bath of stars. The girl remembered her legs and the light of the moon.
A few bends up have come to an abrupt halt. Less than before, the pathway rejected advancement, only a pivot. There was no light where she would venture but the alternative: an endless night brought about by a curtain of wings. Only the soft glow of her mercurian light aided her here. A wall became a forked path. Whatever the choice it seemed meaningless in comparison to an unanswerable question. Which way? Each choice broached a new decision. This hall had become a hydra. Direction guided by a midnight sundial. The soft pulsing glow from her arms fissure the only constant.
Through the oppressive fog bound darkness an onyx feather appeared. Her gentle hands gingerly lifted the feather from the cold stone floor. *A wheat field under a harvest sunset. Down
the path another feather. *An isolated candle nearly melted. And another. *A bundle of blooming tiger lilies. A trail of memories lay before her. The feathers warmed her cool skin and the pulsing silver light strengthened ever so slightly. Her gravel-like step became bedrock. The walls almost seemed see-through, her destination clear.
As she entered the large square the feathers began gradually lifting from her flawless grasp. The crow was waiting, softly tacking as it stuttered about. Feathers softly floating to the winged impression, the planetarium dome began to recede from a pinpoint opening. A flood of light extinguished the pervasive fog and darkness alike. As the two lifted their eyes from their interlocked gaze their forms became basked in an ocean of indigo and silver starlight. A panoramic bath of stars. A flash of amber light broke from the crows beak and the room became engulfed in pearlescent ruby fire. Chrome wings exploded out of her slender torso and with swift grace the carrion and the crane lifted into an opulent glittering twilight. In their close dance a dull silver light flickered out of the crows' abyssal eyes. The world moved at nearly a standstill as a glistening array of ceramic faces and slow-blinking eyes shifted through the carrions head. A sirening chord the backdrop of bliss as a curtain of wings vignetted her. Closed eyes. Moonlit night.
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