HEARTBEAT

Over the course of weeks, Dale met the rest of the tower guardians east of the breach as each arrived: Cleodheris from Tower of the Clouds, a serene and ethereal woman who spoke little, even as Boreemadhe sniped at her for sending so many clouds to Tower of the Rains; Doreleon from Tower of the Rivers, who played a reed pipe and never tired of fish tales; Fresk from Tower of the Valleys, who appeared younger than the others, if youth was of any relevance among magical projections; and finally, Winthorpe, from Tower of the Summits, the elemental mage who had long ago created running water in each tower for the benefit of the wallkeepers.

Merdigen remained absent along with the three other guardians to the west, and Dale was beginning to worry, but in the meantime she had been obliged to tell, over and over, the story of the breach in the wall, and update each new arrival on the course of history over the last two hundred years or so. By the time Winthorpe had arrived, her tale was well-practiced.

After so many years of “sleep” and isolation, the tower guardians made up for lost time with parties. At any given moment, Dorleon might pull out his pipe and play a raucous tune on it, and Itharos would lead Boreemadhe around the chamber in a dance. Meanwhile, Fresk would take Winthorpe on in a drinking game in which both grew steadily more inebriated. Cleodheris presided over it all with extreme serenity.

One would never suspect, with all their carrying on, the wall was in fragile condition.

As practiced as Dale was in bringing the tower guardians to the present, she was equally rehearsed in telling Alton about each new arrival. He’d taken to recording notes in his journal, and often made her repeat certain details as he needed them, which was something of a trial. Once he’d actually followed her all the way to the latrine, peppering her with questions until she shooed him away.

Mostly Alton was interested in whatever she could glean from the guardians about their individual towers and what they knew of the construction of the wall, and what Dale received from them were variations of Merdigen’s tale, of lonely exile, the murder of their fellow mages on the mountain, and the choice King Jonaeus had offered them. Then serious discussion would disintegrate when someone suggested a game of Intrigue or speculated on the position of the stars and the meaning of their formations and that of the periodic appearances of other heavenly bodies. Inevitably someone would produce parchment and pen from the thin air and start scrawling equations and geometric shapes that were beyond Dale. Their discussions were even more incomprehensible, one part philosophy and one part mathematics, and all more or less gibberish to Dale’s ear.

Above all, they preferred parties, and when the wine and ale started flowing—wine and ale that did not exist and that Dale could not therefore enjoy—it was impossible to get anything worthwhile out of them, so she gave up in disgust, ready to grab bunches of her hair and rip it out, and left the guardians to their own devices.

And then she’d have to give Alton the details, such as they were, and repeat them over and over.

One night Dale slept comfortably bundled in her blankets, dreaming she was floating over beautiful hills and valleys, the landscape rolling along beneath her. She was overcome by a sensation of lightness and freedom. Until Alton called to her.

“Dale? You awake?”

She dropped like an anchor and awoke with a snort.

“Dale?”

She blinked at candlelight only to find Alton leaning over her. Gone was the joy of the dream.

“What’s the hour?” she mumbled.

“Don’t know,” Alton said. “Late. Er, sorry to wake you, but…”

“I was flying,” she said, her voice mournful.

At first Alton remained silent, then said, “Flying?”

“In my dream.”

“Oh.”

“It was a beautiful dream.” She sighed. “What do you need?”

He wanted her to recall more of the equations the guardians had been drawing.

Dale raised herself on her elbow and regretted it as cold air seeped into the toasty regions beneath her blankets. “Whatever for?”

“Could be important,” he replied.

“It has to do with the stars, not the wall.” She fell into her pillow and pulled the covers up to her neck. “You know what I think? I think you should try to get more sleep.”

“I can’t,” Alton said. “All I can think about…There’s just too much going on in my head.”

“Maybe Leese would make you a draught if you asked her.”

“I don’t want one,” he said. “In case…in case some idea comes to me or something happens.”

“No ideas will come to you if your mind is too tired to come up with them.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand,” said Dale irritably, “that you woke me up in the middle of a beautiful dream.”

“Fine,” Alton snapped, and the candlelight faded as he left Dale’s side. “It’s easy for you. You can get inside the tower and talk to the guardians. You don’t have the weight of the wall and the destruction of Sacoridia on your shoulders.” With that, he was gone.

Easy? Dale wondered. It was true that his burden was greater, and his frustration immense, but it was not so easy for her either, to play messenger between him and the party-happy tower guardians. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t know what was at stake—she knew all too well. She was not, however, going to feel guilty about it.

At least, not until reveille.

Alton had nowhere else to go. It was either back to his own tent or to the wall. He chose the wall.

He knew the way with his eyes shut, so walking through the dark with only weak illumination from the watch fires was not difficult. The guards nodded to him as he passed by. Otherwise the world was quiet and the air frosty, the encampment caught in stillness, stillness he could not bring to himself. He longed for that sense of peace, which he had not felt since the wall was breached. Back then, he’d known his place in the world and had no reason to doubt the future. The breach had changed everything, and all he could see in the future was disaster.

He paused before the tower wall. The granite shone in the starlight, and he slipped off the mitten his whiskey-distilling aunt knitted for him and pressed his palm against the rough, unforgiving stone. It was not fair that others should be able to pass through it and speak with the tower guardians. By all rights, by his birthright, he should be able to pass through the tower wall and communicate with the guardians, but now, as always, the stone before him remained mute in the serenity of the night.

He thought Karigan might understand his frustration better than Dale. She’d been on the other side of the wall; she’d dealt with the dark powers there. He almost reached for the letter still unread in an inner pocket and stopped himself. Yes, Karigan would understand the danger, he knew that. But he wasn’t sure she would understand him.

Alton sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, his cheek and ear pressed against it as if listening for a heartbeat, but he heard nothing, of course. In the morning he’d take a ride to inspect the wall and the breach. He had not seen the eyes in the wall since that one time, though he always felt watched and as if there were conversations going on about him just below his hearing. Maybe the eyes watched him when he wasn’t looking.

He gazed above the fringe of treetops, toward the heavens and there shimmering across the sky was the greenish hue of northern lights. Alton wondered if maybe the gods were relaying some message, and though the lore of the land interpreted the lights in many ways, from good fishing to a long, hard winter, the gods did not speak to him.

In the quiescence, Alton’s eyes started to close. He did not move, did not feel impelled to, and imagined himself turning to stone, a statue of granite, a memorial to the one who tried and failed.

He fell asleep there, leaning against the tower wall, the side of his face pressed against granite. Were he awake, he might have detected an answering gleam to the northern lights on the wall, an aura of green aglow around him that faded in a breath.

In the deepest places inside his mind, however, he did hear a heartbeat, his own in rhythm with that of the wall.