A Tower in the Well - Chapter 5

from Pinocchio

 ...Gepetto held the block of wood to his ear and heard a voice, muffled, trapped within. The old carpenter chiseled a curved line for a mouth and two small holes for ears. He listened again.

“Who are you?” the block of wood asked, its voice suddenly free.

“Your father,” the carpenter said.

“But I am a tree.”

Gepetto smiled. “When the tree is gone, the wood is born. When the wood is gone, my dream is born.”

“Of what are you dreaming, father?”

The old carpenter closed his eyes and whispered into the grain of the wood. “I’m dreaming of you dancing, my son. Entertaining a crowd with pirouettes and tumbles. I’m dreaming of the beauty in their eyes and a few coins in my pocket...”

           

Chapter 5

Ember

            Stealing a brief pause from her climb up the stairs, Ember ran her fingers over what once was a window. She and her sister Cala, tired from play, used to sit in the windowsill, looking at the bright lights of the capital city on the horizon. Watching them dance upon the black sky, the sisters had whispered their dreams to each other. Now the window was sealed, rough and bumpy like a scab on the wall. Ember let her touch trail away. Though she could not see it, the lights of the capital had faded.

            And she had lost Cala a long time ago.

            Ember continued and climbed the staircase that coiled to the top of the tower. The glow radiating from her skin, soft and golden, was enough to see the steps, to keep her from stumbling. Still, upon reaching the loft of the tower, she sighed. Hungry and weak, she did not have much energy to spare, but she needed to see properly.

            Ember let what meager energy she had flow to every inch of her skin, making it glow brighter, trying to illuminate the loft. However, her glow barely filled the space, barely reached its curving walls, and it still allowed gloomy shadows to live between every box, bench, and table in the room.

            Ember told herself she was unafraid.

            She was a Fen. She was Fen and the Fen shined in the darkness. They did not fear the shadows like some scuttling, lightless creature. No, their light pushed the shadows back. Not only was she a brave Fen, but the loft had always been filled with gloomy, little shadows, before and after.

            Little shadows between the boxes before the Perfect conquered the world, killing everyone. And little shadows after, when the unlucky remainder lived as slaves.

            So why should she fear shadows when a Perfect lived in her tower.

            Ember shook her head and corrected her thoughts. The tower was no longer her family’s home and workshop. It was only His tower. Letting the words, ‘my tower’ escape her lips meant pain or death.

            Milno, poor tiny Milno, a year older but much more a child than she, had died yesterday for demanding water out of turn. The Perfect’s mood had sat on a coin’s edge that morning, but maybe Milno no longer cared. His scream extinguished, as did his glow, with a sickening pop. Today, he was dust upon the floor that Ember had yet to sweep.

            Never had Ember felt so alone. There were only two other Fen left. Silent Argi, off searching for food and water — and taking far too long. And old Tesla, clinging to life.

            But hope lived.

            With a grunt, Ember hoisted the fountain pot to the middle of the room, placing it on the circular, white slab of the sending stone. An inlay of metal covered the circle, forming concentric rings in a maze-like pattern. Ember pushed the pot to the precise centre of that maze, and the pot set into position with a loud click.

            Instantly, the thin intertwined lines of copper and oberon metals burned blue and lit up the loft with a radiant azure light. She let the glow of her skin dim and climbed up onto the sending stone.

            Obviously, nothing would pour out of the pot. Not anymore. She had seen her uncle summon torrents of water before, which drained into the floor grate, flooding the pipes so that the artisans downstairs could transfuse water into the half-completed Perfect. Her uncle called it the ‘blooding process.’ Something about that water made it poison for Fen, but essential for the Perfect.

            Poison though it was, Ember smacked her dry, cracked lips at the memory of that flowing water.

            She had not had a drop of anything in days.

            Leaning over the fountain pot, Ember did not expect water but hoped for another miracle. She reached in, carefully glowing her hand brighter to see inside, but the golden light only revealed an empty pot. She sighed, and lifting it off the circular sending stone, Ember gave the fountain pot a good shake. Not even a particle of dust fell out.

            Yesterday, there had been a red shirt. Today, nothing.

            Although Tesla warned her not to be so foolish should the Perfect see it, Ember was wearing the over-sized shirt, exotic and bright, as a dress. ‘Let’s be friends’ scrawled across the front as a promise that some Fen somewhere — maybe one of the Watchers — was going to save her.

            The shirt, being warm and clean, was a blessing itself.

            On her tip-toes, Ember hooked the empty pot with the others on the rack and they clattered together like a bone rattle. Each pot had strange symbols painted on them, probably letters from a foreign alphabet. The letters were not in Fayree, and Argi had said they were not in Vargig or any other language he knew either — and the groundskeeper spoke four languages. Back when he could speak.

            As she stared, the symbols looked less like letters and more like faces, twisted and scrunched, like the horrible creatures in the Gallery. She shuddered and walked away.

            A basin, rim-full with junk and curiosities, sat on a nearby shelf. She pulled it down and set it on the workbench table. The collection had been scooped up from the fountain pots over the years and now threatened to spill over the top of the basin. Ember fished her hand through it, raking her fingers across coins imprinted with strange creatures and people.

            There was a flimsy bowl. A rubber animal that squeaked when squeezed. And a ball with rows of stitches holding it together instead of simply being fused.

            Her favourite oddity was the porcupine stick. At one end there was a handle, and at the other were spines like a porcupine — except they were dull as finger tips. Ember ran it up her neck, over the ridges that crowned her smooth head, and let it tickle her scalp. She let out a long sigh.

            Abruptly, the light in the room faded as the oberon lines of the sending stone finally extinguished their light. Glancing up, Ember considered sneaking up onto the roof to reenergize in the riftglow, but it was too risky with the Perfect soon to emerge from His chamber. She would not survive His punishment.

            And Tesla needed water.

            Ember dropped the porcupine stick back into the basin and walked over to the old coolant tank. It no longer did anything but get damp on the outside. Without rain, it was her only source of water.

            She took a dirty sponge and wiped down the sides, searching for condensation to soak up. Ember had sponged the tank too many times recently, so there was barely any moisture to grab.

            Barely would have to be enough.

*

            In the gloom, Tesla’s glow was weak and faint. The old lady lay in a hammock, tied between two pipes in what used to be a kitchen. Ember tapped the jar of the bright-worm, to coax some light into the room, but the little critter did not move.

            Tesla looked up, smiled, and offered another pitiful cough. The old lady’s skin had lost its solid glow, now nothing but a patchwork of faint blotches.

            “How are you feeling, Tes?” Ember whispered.

            “Still here,” she said but did not shift from her curled-up position. Ember bit her lip. Tesla told stories of her youth, fondly and often. She had sung in great theatres with a voice as smooth as silk. “Still here, little one,” Tesla croaked with a voice coarse as thorns. “But the bright-worm has left us.”

            The bright-worm was a sad, dark lump in the jar. Milno would have cried. He had caught it and even named it something that Ember could not recall. A heavy silence grew before Tesla sighed. “Poor Milno.”

            Ember ran her hand along the ridges of Tesla’s head. They rose and fell in a wide ring, like a royal circlet, so beautiful compared to her own ugly crown of bumps. “You should have been a queen,” Ember said.

            Tesla wheezed rapidly, and Ember jumped to her feet, panicked. But it was only laughter. “Thank you child, but I am pleased not to live in ancient times, and not be defined and sorted by the ridges on my head.” Another moment of thoughtful silence before she added, “Unfortunate though, that we live in this terrible time instead.” Tesla made a dry smack with her lips.

            Ember pulled out the sponge and held it over Tesla’s mouth. “I have a few drops.”

            “You have it then, child.”

            “I already had some,” Ember lied.

            Tesla opened her mouth as Ember squeezed the sponge. She counted no more than twelve drops falling on the old lady’s tongue. Thirteen would have been lucky at least.

            “Would you like something to eat?”

            Tesla shook her head. “Cannot break it down,” she rasped and lifted her thin arm up. Ember followed the gesture to an orange spot on her shawl. The slop had dried up.

            “Let me clean that up,” Ember said as she dipped a rag into the wash bucket.

            “Argi would never forgive us for stealing food from the rooks,” Tesla said.

            “He is not here to scold,” Ember said, wiping the crust off the shawl as best as she could. Hunger had not driven her to eat the orange slop herself. Yet.

            She dropped the rag back into the bucket of grimy, opaque water. It had not rained in weeks, and Argi was late returning with supplies. The water was filthy but tempting.

            Two days ago, Tesla and Ember had shared the last bottle of fish juice. It felt like years ago, but she could still taste rancid ocean on her breath.

            “There is no water coming from the fountain pots,” Ember said.

            Tesla tried to laugh but wheezed instead. “You were waiting for your tailor, were you not?”

            Ember nodded, looking down at her oversized, red shirt.

            “Whether it is trinkets or water, nothing useful comes from those pots. You do not have the time.”

            “I just hoped someone was on the other side again.”

            “I think,” Tesla began, “it might only be us left.” She reached out her half-shriveled hand and Ember took it in her own. “The Perfect might have taken my breath, He might have blocked the riftglow,” Tesla said, gesturing to the dark room, “and I might die soon. But simply holding your hand gives me such joy.”

            “Speaking of which.” Tesla’s hand tight in hers, Ember’s skin shimmered beyond its usual golden glow into a bright white. Ember gritted her teeth as ribbons of energy rippled across her fingers over Tesla’s hand and wound up her wrist. Like a jumpspring flower, Tesla’s fingers spread as life returned to her withered hand.

            “Stop that!” Tesla snapped, wrenching her hand away with sudden strength. Ember toppled backwards, tipping the wash bucket. Dirty water spilled out across the floor, the stink of sour meat wafting into the air.

            “No more, child,” Tesla said, staring at her hand as it began to curl up like a dead spider.

            “I can channel you more,” Ember said as she slowly rose to her feet. “I can sneak up to the roof when the Perfect retires to His chamber.”

            “Food and water, child. You cannot survive on riftglow alone. Channeling takes everything from you.”

            Ember shook off some dizziness. “Hang on a little longer, Tes.”

            “Things do not last forever,” Tesla said.

            “But I want you to.”

            Tesla’s silver eyes had clouded over; Ember did not know what she could see. “Those rebels who call themselves... Watchers” Tesla murmured, drifting into quiet thought. Ember could picture those rebels clearly or at least how she imagined them from Argi’s stories — before Argi had his voice and breath taken. The rebels named themselves after the gigantic owls called watchers. Whether it was because the birds were fierce and cunning or because they flew silently was unknown. Regardless, the Watchers resisted the Perfect’s tyranny. They smuggled Fen out of slavery and fought off roving packs of retrievers. Ember always knew they were going to save her and Tesla and Argi... and Milno.

            “The Watchers are not coming, Ember,” Tesla said. Ember leaned in and snuggled into Tesla’s bony body. Tesla tried to pat her head, but instead just rested her fingers on Ember’s ridges. ‘They are not coming’, echoed in Ember’s mind.

            “Maybe they will save us tonight,” Ember whispered.

            “We have a better chance of a real watcher flying through the window and hoot-hooting at us.”

            Ember looked at the window, long ago sealed shut by the Perfect. Big as they were, she could not imagine the gargantuan owl clawing its way through even before the space had been covered. She thought she had seen a watcher flying across the horizon once, but it turned out to be just a messenger drone.

            The clock resting in the corner chimed.

            “You better hurry, little flame. Remember do not make Him angry,” Tesla said quietly, putting the proper melodic tone on Him.

            “I know.”

            Tesla grabbed Ember’s hand. “You cannot wear that.”

            Ember looked down at the red shirt and nodded. In her section of the room, she changed into her dress which was little more than soiled rags. She laid the red shirt on top of Tesla to keep her warm.

            “Bold and swift,” the old lady said with a tired smile. “Do not anger Him. Remember to disguise the knife.”

*

            Rumbling echoed up the staircase. Ember could imagine the Perfect’s chamber door slowly rolling open. Despite a pang of fear, she was grateful for it. Like clockwork, it let her know that it would be twenty minutes before He would start His dance.

            Ember lifted a panel off the wall and tapped twice on a pipe inside. She heard the duteous little feet of her automaton coming closer but far too slowly. She banged the pipe. “Glimmer, hurry!”

            Soon enough, her automaton scuttled out. His little scorpion-shaped body was a heap of scavenged tin, oberon, and aluminum scraps twisted around a glass bottle of cleaning formula and held together with invisible strands of Ember’s breath. His glowing eye flicked upwards and his two scrub-hands reached out for Ember’s face.

            “Too slow for cuddles!” she scolded. “Play dead.” Glimmer flopped lifeless in her hand, and she shoved him into her pocket.

            Ember sprinted downward floor by floor, daring not to glance into the Perfect’s open chamber or even towards the closed Gallery door, all the way to the bottom where—

            —she quickly recoiled and pressed herself against the wall.

            Dark and glistening, the Gate’s Eye was awake.

            Sensing movement, the Gate’s Eye extended out from its wall-pod, towards Ember, suspended by spindly vine-like cords. The eye would recognize Argi, the gatekeeper, and no other. Seeing her, it withdrew back into its wall-pod with a squelch, leaving the front gate locked and impassable.

            Ember shuddered and squeezed between the gigantic golden doors of the performance hall.

            Entering the performance hall, she always felt like an insect. Everything was built to the Perfect’s scale, giant sized. Twenty feet wide, the grand mirror only filled an eighth of the room, and it stretched up forty feet, still without touching the vaulted ceiling. Holes dotted that ceiling, carved out so that the Gallery could, on command, descend by their chains.

            Before the Perfects overthrew their creators, and before her own Perfect had transformed the tower to serve His purpose, Ember used to play here, chasing her sister up and down scaffolding, dodging a small army of artisans carving out the Perfect’s body from stone, running until their mother caught them. Then they would dim their glow and hide amongst the containers, watching everyone bring life to stone, bring life to a Perfect, one stage at a time.

            Her mother’s yelling, accented and hoarse, still lingered clear in her memory, but the lines of her face, the shape of the ridges of her brow were now vague and indistinct.

            Time dulls all edges.

            Ember pulled Glimmer out of her pocket and placed him on the floor. He was forbidden of course, and the Perfect would destroy him on sight. Create at His will only was the fourth rule of her Perfect. But the time Glimmer saved her was invaluable.

            Glimmer was a cleaner. Suction-sponges formed little slippers on his feet, enabling him to climb and slide around the grand mirror. With Argi’s help, Ember had dismantled an old camera, and the lens and sensor plate served as a simple eye.

            Today, one of his back legs did not seem to work as he limped towards the mirror. “Shake your leg for me,” Ember said when she picked him up again. Inside the darkness of the tower, the woven strands of breath were practically invisible, and she could not tell if they had been severed or bunched up.

            Holding Glimmer carefully, she took a deep breath. Exhaling from the bottom of her lungs, near transparent strands found their way along her little automaton’s leg. She imagined how the leg worked and did her best to visualize not only Glimmer moving around, but his personality, too. If she did not concentrate, she would not be able to animate the leg properly. The last thing Glimmer needed was a leg with a mind of its own.

            Glimmer stretched and bent his leg a few times, successfully. The little automaton gave Ember a friendly stroke with his foot, before leaping onto the mirror.

            Ember turned her attention to the dirty floor. She slid open a door from the wall, revealing a small room of cleaning supplies and devices. Ember pulled out a sweeper rod, activated its orb, and started to cleanse the floor.

            Once Glimmer reached the top of the mirror, the bulbous bottle, protruding from his back, began pouring out cleaning liquid. A curtain of green liquid raced down the mirror, coating nearly everything. The familiar scent of cleaner, smelling of empty wine bottles, wafted into Ember’s nose reminding her — as always — of sorting glass containers with her mother. Meanwhile, Glimmer tirelessly glided from dry spot to dry spot, rubbing them with his little rag belly, making sure the entire surface was covered.

            Glimmer would clean the mirror in minutes, while it took Ember hours. She was running a big risk, leaving this chore so late. They still had time, she hoped.

            A living cloud of particles, emitting from the sweeper rod, crept wraithlike along the floor, snagging dust into itself. Ember closed her eyes as its ghostly tendrils absorbed a large patch of dust off the floor, and muttered a quiet prayer for Milno.

            Floor clean, worry spiraled up in her mind. With Tesla ill, Ember would act as His devotee, His critic and advocate both. One misspoken word would send Him into a fury. How was she supposed to critique His performance without being destroyed to dust on the floor?    

            Ember sat, watching Glimmer finish the last few spots of the mirror, polishing with his scrubbers. Then a first spark of light appeared in the middle of the performance hall. Ember struggled to her feet, trying to remember the words Tesla would use to soothe the Perfect’s temper. Not one helpful phrase surfaced from her memory.

            Feeling a tug on her dress, Ember reached down and put Glimmer in her pocket. “Play dead,” she whispered to her pocket before turning to watch the dance of her Perfect.

            She had seen Him entertain a stadium of thousands with His pirouettes and tumbles. He won championships and earned her family honour and praise. Then He and the other Perfect decided to kill everyone.

            From the stage, a large black-marble circle in the centre of the room, grass began to grow. The grass was grey, shaped from stone, but swayed life-like in a pretend breeze. Then giant grey stalks stretched out from the grass, unfurling into equally drab flowers.

            All was grey, the colour boiled away.

            She could criticize His lack of colour, if she dared, but this was His choice. Her Perfect shaped reality into what He wanted.

            Like a fist punching through the floor, a flower bud, much larger than the rest, burst up from the centre. Blades of grass shattered, shards flew everywhere, and Ember felt small stabs as she protected her face. Peeking above her bleeding arm, she saw the bud begin to spin then bloom.

            Her Perfect sat, in the centre of the bloom, contorted into a tight ball, a knot of white stone. She wondered how He controlled everything while sitting so still — as far as she knew, all Perfect needed to move in order to twist and shape the world around them. As the sway of the stone grass slowed, she realized the simple trick. The water inside His core must still be sloshing about. He drew power from the movement of the water inside Him.

            Slowly, He stretched out like an opening rose — a flower within a flower — and upon the stone petals He stood at full height, higher than the grand mirror. His head half-disappeared in the shadows of the ceiling.

            She desperately hoped His ridgeless head would get stuck in one of the Gallery chutes.

            Like most Perfects, He was carved to be a giant, sixteen feet tall and half as wide at the shoulders. Today, He wore a dark grey body tunic with a silver belt, clearly wanting to show off the artistry of His body. His arms and legs were as thick as tree limbs and undulating with muscles. What could be called skin was white as bleached bone.

            His eyes were shut, but she could never forget them: polished dark crystal with clouds trapped inside, swirling different colours depending on His mood.

            The living statue, her Perfect, began to dance, spinning gracefully, pulling His hands from the ground to the ceiling, causing stone trees to spiral up from the floor. Tracing circles with His fingers, the Perfect tangled grey ivy up the base of the trees.

            Three little spheres of banded wood and metal floated down from the ceiling and began to orbit the Perfect. Like Glimmer, these were Ember’s automatons, but made at the Perfect’s demand for fireflies to float around Him.

            A pitiful light flickered in each of the firefly’s bellies. Ember gasped, remembering at once that she had forgotten to revitalize them in the riftglow. They cheapened the Perfect’s performance.

            The Perfect stood still, apparently not noticing the dim fireflies, and Ember noticed how oddly silent the whole performance was. Despite the Perfect’s ability to shape sound as easily as He shaped light, stone, or flesh, the performance was unaccompanied by music.

            Ember did not know the first thing about critiquing a performance without being destroyed with a wave of His hand. Tesla had a gift for guiding the Perfect with her words, but Ember knew it not to be a simple thing. There had been two devotees before Tesla, and Ember had swept their ashes up the same as she had Milno’s.

            His hum started low.

            Ember thought it a buzzing in her ears, but then the Perfect’s voice grew stronger, a deep sound like the breath of a mountain. His voice formed into a wordless song, an ominous melody as if some great beast stalked its prey.

            As the song lifted towards crescendo, the room grew hot and the air rippled. Then colour, so much colour, amidst the grey. Red, orange, yellow, and ghostly blue.

            Fire erupted everywhere.

            The wall of heat knocked Ember to her knees, but the flames did not reach her. Instead, they enveloped the stone grass and trees and flowers, and the Perfect stood above it all, His voice stoking the fire. Then He danced, and His movement caused all the plants to writhe and twist in the flames, creating the illusion that the stone was burning.

            The Perfect leapt in the air and landed on the ground — too softly for a statue weighing three tonnes. For a long moment, the Perfect held onto His grip of reality before letting go. Immediately, all the grey plants melted away like ice in a furnace, and the performance floor was again normal black marble.

             He turned towards Ember and bowed flawlessly, His arms outstretched as if He were about snatch her up. “I live for your critique, Tesla. But please, be gentle,” He said, His voice deep and loud.

            “The devotee is not here,” Ember squeaked, words escaping her mouth as a whisper.

            His eyes shot wide, and within each black eye the white clouds turned blue and electric. “Louder, little Ember. Please.”

            “Sh-she is not... here, M-Master. She is... very sick,” she managed.

            The Perfect let out a soundless sigh, for show as He had no breath of any kind, and folded His arms. “Very sick, a little sick, not sick. She must be here. She knows how valuable she is to me... unless she is dead.”

            Ember shook her head vigorously.

            “State the first rule.”

            “Be present and able.”

            “The mirror is damp, and the floor could use a polish. I suppose you need to be punished for that....” She knew by the swirl in His eyes that He quickly debated this before saying, “But that would spoil the blessed mood I have today. When Tesla is dead, burn the body.”

            “Y-yes, master.”

            “I will make immediate arrangements for a new devotee.” The Perfect’s eyes suddenly went completely black as if the Perfect’s soul had left His body. Then His eyes flashed alive again, cloud-calm. “Enough boring business. Child, give me your critique. Tell me what feelings my entrance evoked in your heart.”

            Fear, anger, and hatred.

            “I like the colour of the fire,” Ember said. Disguising the knife, Tesla called it, when you criticize through compliment.

            “But the rest was too grey,” the Perfect said, tapping His chin with a dull thud. “I am experimenting with shaping raw material only, no illusion of light. True colour could be ripped from the plants outside, but one should not waste life, little Ember,” He said, placing a single finger on her shoulder.

            “Yes, master,” she said, struggling to stand under His finger’s heavy weight.

            “Reuse, repurpose it. Make it forever.” He looked heavenward and shouted, “Gallery! LIGHT!”

            Above, the rooks of the Gallery stirred in their roost, clanking, jangling, shuffling, moaning. A moment later, a dozen black forms descended, shackled to long chains. Ember focused on the face of the Perfect and not the twisted, living lanterns He had created. Tesla had named them ‘rooks’, because of their jet-black skin and birdlike features.

            Ember suffered her Perfect’s unwelcome smile. His teeth, from a distance in the arenas, were meant to be beautiful. Up close, they were horrid and wrong, spiraled fangs — a mockery of a Fen’s sharp teeth.

            Each rook of His Gallery began to glow, thick body veins pulsating with light. However, their radiance was pathetic and sickly — ghostly as the ruins of the capital on the horizon. The illumination grew until the Perfect could see Himself in the mirror, if only barely.

            “Oh, twiddle-twine,” the Perfect said, turning back to look at His sorry creations of flesh. “The Gallery does not please me.” At those words the rooks quaked and their chains rattled. They grew brighter, but barely. “And, I might add,” He said, signalling to the fireflies hovering above His head, “Your fireflies do not please either.”

            Ember let her skin glow brighter, adding her light to the weak glow of the rooks of the Gallery. The Perfect turned to His own reflection and became lost in it.

            Several minutes passed like this. He would stare or pose then gracefully spin and land, catlike and quiet.

            Ember’s knees shook like plucked harp strings, and her skin tingled as she drew up what little energy she had left to maintain such illumination. She stifled a gasp of relief when the Perfect finally signaled for her to cease.

            Relief swelled in her.

            And maybe that was why she made a mistake.

            “Perhaps, more time in the riftglow would revive the Gallery?” she offered.

            The Perfect’s eyes went black. “Manners, Ember. Say the rule.”

            Eyes suddenly wide, Ember slowly recited, “Always speak second.”

            “Glow bright, my dear.”

            She took a deep breath, forcing everything to her skin. Again, the room lit up.

            “Brighter,” the Perfect commanded softly.

            Her glow intensified.

            The rooks, glow-starved, stretched their arms down towards Ember’s light, tasting her illumination on their wing-like arms, murmuring hunger in their gone language. The Perfect gave her the slightest of smiles, before Ember’s vision doubled and blurred.

            “I look as splendid as the day your family made me,” she heard Him say. “If only it could be this bright always,” He said as Ember collapsed to the ground, feeling the light fading from her skin. The bastard could make His own light if He wanted to as easy as waving His hand.

            She forced herself to sit up, her muscles burning and reminding her that she was not yet dust.

            “Take the Gallery onto the veranda for a full hour today. Then clean every inch of the performance hall. Visitors will be coming soon.”

            “Yes, Master,” Ember said in barely a voice.

            “Here, my boon to you.” He stepped back and spun slowly. From the floor, as if pushing to the surface of a pond, a silver platter covered with carrots, tomatoes, zapberries, apples and barkmelon materialized. Beside it a ceramic jug spun into being, sloshing liquid inside.

            Ember leaned forward and grabbed the platter. “Thank you, master.”

            “Please, Ember take a bite. I long to see a smile on your face.”

            Ember knelt and bit into a tomato, flooding her dry mouth with juice and seeds. Rocks, sand, and blood, she imagined and forced the tomato flesh to the side of her cheek. The juice sat in her mouth, but she dared not drink a drop.

            Ember tilted her head back and flashed her teeth, hoping that counted as a smile and the Perfect would not see her hiding food.

            The Perfect grinned back. “Thank you, child. Bring food to Tesla if she is not dead already.” Ember grabbed the platter food and jug of water and left the performance hall, while the Perfect shouted at His Gallery for more light.

            As soon as Ember passed through the golden doors, they slammed shut. Ember threw down the platter and jug. The fruits and vegetables rolled away, and the jug cracked, pouring out a large puddle of water. A hunk of tomato flew as Ember spat it against the wall, followed by gagging as she tried to get rid of every drop of juice and little seed in her mouth.

            Ember picked up her tomato, juice oozing from its bite wound, hoping it would stay a tomato. But, as it did every time, its colour faded grey and it returned to the stone it was shaped from. She turned it over and smacked the back, causing sand to pour from it. On the ground, the feast from the Perfect was now only a flawless sculpture of food next to a puddle of sand.

            A few Fen had died that first night with the Perfect, eating His welcome feast. Ember vomited pebbles and sand, but survived. Tesla said He is like a child starving spiders in a jar, not understanding why they will not eat their vegetables.

            This tower was very much His jar.

            Wiping sand from her mouth, she glanced up to see the Gate’s Eye watching her. “At least I am not stuck in a door,” she snapped and the Gate’s Eye blinked and withdrew to its pod.

*

            The punishment had drained her, but Ember quickly returned to Tesla. Placing a gentle hand on the devotee’s forehead, she asked, “Are you awake, you tough old lady?”

            “Water,” Tesla gasped.

            “We have no water.”

            “Anything, please,” she whimpered.

            Ember shuffled upstairs, but she found that the coolant tank was paper dry. She looked at the fountain pots, trying to decipher meaning in their runes. One looked as random as the other.

            She took Glimmer, still playing dead, out of her pocket and placed him on the lower rack of fountain pots. “Wake up, Glimmer. Pick a fountain pot. We need a winner.”

            Glimmer shook himself awake and climbed up to the top row of pots. He walked along, tapping each pot with his soft feet. Tap, tap, tap. Glimmer chose the third fountain pot from the left.

            Ember sighed, recognizing the symbol from before. “No Glimmer. That is the red shirt pot. We need water.”

            Tap, tap, tap. Glimmer refused to move to another pot.

            “Fine, have it your way.” Ember reached up and lifted the pot down, almost dropping it from exhaustion. She set it on the sending stone with a loud click. Ear to the pot, she could almost hear the ocean, but she did not hear the trickling of water filling the pot.

            “You sure about this one?”

            Glimmer bobbed up and down. Ember guessed he was trying to nod.

            Then from the pot, she heard a quiet inhalation, as if the pot took a breath.       

            Reaching in, her fingers closed on paper. It was a folded square of paper, and, written in black ink it read: 

            My name is Eddie, what’s yours?

           “Eddie,” she said, sounding out the name of her saviour.