The Towering Flame Read online

  The Towering Flame: Book One of The Survivors

  By

  Robert I. Katz

  The Towering Flame:

  Book One of The Survivors

  Copyright © 2019 by Robert I. Katz

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover design by Steven A. Katz

  Other Books by Robert I. Katz

  Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future

  The Cannibal’s Feast

  The Kurtz and Barent Mystery Series:

  Surgical Risk

  The Anatomy Lesson

  Seizure

  The Chairmen

  Brighton Beach

  If a Tree Falls

  The Chronicles of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind:

  The Game Players of Meridien

  The City of Ashes

  The Empire of Dust

  The Empire of Ruin

  The Well of Time

  Contents

  Part One

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  The End

  Information About the Author

  Part One

  Prologue

  It was hot on the plateau, but he had endured far worse on the climb through the mountain pass. Now the outlines of a ruined installation loomed before him, stone and concrete walls crumbling into the grass, none more than waist high.

  Was it safe? He thought that it was. Flowers bloomed at the edges of the trees, which looked tall and strong, well nourished by rich soil and ample rain. There were birds, at least four species, and they appeared to be both abundant and healthy.

  Still, sickness sometimes hid deep in the soil, and struck a man down, days, even weeks after exposure. The ancients, or so it was said, had devices that could detect such sickness, but those days and those devices were long gone.

  He sighed, removed a thin protective garment made of natural polyisoprene from the pack his mule carried and put it on. The suit would provide at least some protection, though it made the heat of the day much, much hotter.

  No help for it, though, if he wanted to live.

  So far as he knew, none of his competitors had found this place but where one had gone, others could follow. He had best be quick. It was a dangerous business, scrounging for buried treasure in the deep places of the earth.

  Chapter 1

  A Child’s First Lesson Upon Entering Scholium:

  The ancient places of the World are perilous and many, filled with ghosts and golems, illusions and the voices of the dead. It is said that those who wander into the dead cities, emerge, if they emerge at all, unable to speak of what they have heard and seen. Most soon perish, aging years in only a few days, their bones crumbling into chalk, their muscles wasting away. Those few who do not die, achieve madness, not wisdom.

  Avoid the dead cities. This is the first and most important lesson that you must learn.

  Avoid the dead cities, and even more important, avoid the mistakes that caused those cities to be dead.

  “Do you like my hat, Terence?” Irina Archer asked.

  “Certainly,” Terence Allen replied. “The hat is very beautiful. As always, your taste in hats is exquisite.”

  Irina Archer gave her fiancé a tiny sniff. Her horse raised its head from the clump of grass it had been chewing, glanced at Terence, and, Terence imagined, rolled its eyes.

  “Race me?” Irina smiled, a ferocious smile, full of challenge.

  Terence Allen smiled back, though his smile was one of indulgence more than passion. “Certainly,” he said.

  The trail stretched before them, wide enough for four riders to run abreast, and wound through a carefully tended section of woods. Through the trees, a lake could be glimpsed, gleaming in the sunlight. Terence had ridden this trail many times before.

  Terence Allen knew himself to be a lucky man, though he accepted his good fortune with the equanimity appropriate to the wealthy and the devout. Terence was the third of Lord Allen’s sons, and as such, he could look forward to a life filled with comfort and some minimal responsibility.

  Irina, on the other hand, was the first daughter of Lord Malachi Archer. First daughter outranked third son, as Irina never hesitated to remind her long-suffering fiancé. They were young to be engaged, he nineteen and she barely eighteen when their parents had signed the contract, now one year past.

  They had known each other as children. LeClair, the Archers’ family seat, stood next to Briony, the Allens’ grand estate. Irina Archer was smaller than most girls of similar age but she was fearless, fighting with children larger than herself over imaginary slights, throwing herself off cliffs into the lake waters far below, climbing higher than any other into the trees, giving no quarter.

  At twelve years old, Terence had considered Irina Archer aggressive and annoying. And then she had vanished, for five years, sent to live with her aunt, a lady of the Doge’s Court in far off Cathay.

  At the age of seventeen, Irina Archer returned. Terence first saw her when she arrived for classes at the Lyceum. He was eighteen, still growing rapidly, awkward with a height and length of arm that changed by the week. Irina had matured, seeming older than her age. She arrived with two servants, one young and one, a duenna, very old. Her hair was long and flowed down her back in auburn waves. She wore a dark blue gown meant for travel, with a tasseled gray hat. She emerged from her coach with her head held high and surveyed the schoolyard with speculative eyes and a mocking smile, a queen among her subjects.

  Terence saw her, and it was as if he had never seen her before. He blinked.

  He saw her next a week later, at the audition for a school play, Romeus and Julieta, an ancient translation of an even more ancient play from an era long lost.

  Terence played the part of Romeus, banished in the end for the murder of Julieta’s cousin, Tybalt, while Julieta, chastened by the fires of passion, wed Romeus’ level-headed friend, Mercutio, and lived a long life of discretion, dignity and good-sense.

  Irina, it turned out, had a talent for drama. She could inhabit a persona and make it her own. Her voice was low, smoky and rich, and carried easily to the farthest reaches of the theater. Though young and newly arrived, she earned the part of Julieta and her performance was met with acclaim—though not without criticism, the sly glances and veiled innuendo she directed at the audience somewhat undercutting the contrition Julieta was meant to display at having encouraged the headstrong and unsuitable Romeus.

  Irina Archer could not have cared less.

  “Hai!” She spurred her horse, a high-spirited black stallion, and within seconds was three lengths in front of Terence, who sighed, and chased after her.

  Chapter 2

  Varanisi, the Viceroy’s city, was comprised of three contiguous districts. The outer ring surrounded the mountain, upon which perched the Viceroy’s pala
ce, and was inhabited by the monied classes, which included the houses and estates of the landed gentry, the merchants, the professional classes, the Inquisitoria and, of course, all those who could work with soul-stuff. This included the Royal Academy, where children from all seven nations were brought to hone their talents, and ultimately, to serve the Viceroy.

  Beyond the outer ring lay farms and fields and small villages, which, though geographically distant, officially lay within the borders of Varanisi and under the Viceroy’s sway.

  In the center of the city, which filled the valley below the mountain and down to the docks fronting on the river, lived the plebeians, who may, in another place and age, have held a position of dignity and respect, but here and now were fit for little except labor.

  Labor was useful, of course, even necessary, but anybody could carry bundles and haul water up the mountain. Labor was long, hot and unpleasant. Labor did not pay well, and was not always available, and as the days grew long, the air grew still and the temperature became first uncomfortable and then stifling, the plebes would often grow restive. The city guardians rarely patrolled into the plebes’ quarters and it was not unusual to find a body or two floating in the river on any given morning.

  However, the mood always lifted as the Holy Day of Investiture grew closer. It was a day eagerly anticipated by the well-to-do citizens of Varinisi, beginning as it did the grandest festival of the year, and in the week before the holiday, a giddy mood overtook the entire city. On the day itself, the Viceroy opened the palace to the gentry and their guests, and a banquet table covering one whole side of the grand ballroom was laden with delicacies. Wine, beer and spirits flowed freely. Those who attended wore costumes and masks, to be greeted by the Viceroy, his concubines and his wives.

  The Viceroy’s palace soared high into the air and burrowed deep into the mountain. The palace was filled with wonders, lights powered by the movement of electrons through wires, air cooled by some alchemy otherwise unknown. It was surrounded by a forest, which covered the mountain down to its base, and below the mountain, the houses and estates of the wealthy surrounded the heart of the city, Varanisi.

  The current incarnation of the Viceroy had ruled for nearly two hundred years. He appeared to be a man of early middle age, hale and hearty, upright and strong. There were lines around his eyes, lines put there by deepest thought, lines of laughter and of joy. The Viceroy smiled often. Children and small dogs were drawn to him, for he had a kind word and a gentle hand for them all.

  The Holy Day of Investiture marked the beginning of Summer, and the start of the Summer Fair, which would last for ten whole days. Ten days of feasting, of games, of shows and plays and musical performances and madcap behavior. Merchants with their goods came to Varanisi from all over the World, as did street performers, magicians, jugglers, puppet-masters, musicians and wandering ronin, who were swords for hire, wandering the seven nations, following rumor of strife, looking for work that required skill with weapons and a capacity for violence. Those who did well at the Viceroy’s tournament were likely to catch the eye of a wealthy lord or merchant, and thereby be rewarded with a commission for the next season.

  For ten days, the inns would be full, drink would flow in an endless river in even the meanest tavern, and bawdy houses would do a brisk business until nearly dawn, when the catamites, men, women and intersexed, would fall alone or with each other into their soiled sheets for a few hours of sleep before the next wave of customers would begin to arrive.

  As was custom, Gladden Field, well outside the city-center, covered in thick grass and bordered by ancient trees, supposedly the site of humankind’s first arrival on the world, was given over to the needs of the Fair. Here the merchants set up their booths, shelves and display cases. Here the musicians played their lutes and violas. Here the commons pitched their tents and the servants of those visiting nobility who had not rented a house for their retinue and themselves, set up the much larger and more elegant tents of their masters.

  In the center of Gladden Field lay the Colliseo, its tiered seats rising in concentric circles, ring upon ring, its soft, flat surface made of cork and nitrile, an ancient material the construction of which had long since been forgotten (though it was said that the databases of the Viceroy forgot nothing). Here, the games would take place.

  Neither the Allen nor the Archer family took houses in the city, since their own lands lay less than a day’s ride away. Both preferred to pitch tents along the edges of Gladden Field, side-by-side. Each family’s tent consisted of many separate partitions, including portable kitchens and privies, with baths and comfortable seats placed over holes dug centuries ago into Varanisi’s evacutoriums.

  “What is that?” Irina asked.

  Terence, who had been staring at a contortionist across the walkway, glanced at Irina. The contortionist had folded himself into a ball, and with his arms and both legs wrapped smoothly around his neck, he was rolling across the stage, knocking down a series of man-sized wooden pins, an impressive and weirdly disturbing sight. “Hmm?”

  Irina tugged at his arm. The tent she pointed to lay at the opposite corner of the improvised street. The crowd was thick and moving in both directions. It took nearly a minute to cross the walkway and enter the tent, which was filled with high shelving and waist high glass cabinets, displaying trinkets of all sorts. Some few of these trinkets vibrated. Others emitted flashing lights. Still others produced scratchy sounds that might once have been music. Aside from this, there seemed no purpose to their construction. A merchant, fat, with a red, smiling face and straw blonde hair, smiled at them. He wore a pin, a gold oak leaf, on his chest.

  “What are you selling?” Irina asked.

  “Ah…” The merchant’s face lit up. “I am an antiquarian, and these are antiques.”

  “Antiques…?” Irina said.

  “Ancient toys and devices, mechanisms left for us by our long ago ancestors. Most have been dug up from the ruins of buried cities.”

  Terence blinked. He had heard of such things. Furtively, he looked around. The priests tended to frown upon the detritus of buried cities. Buried cities were buried for a reason. “You have a permit to sell these?” he asked.

  The merchant’s smile grew wider. “Each has been inspected by your local authorities and declared to be without spiritual contamination. You may examine my license, if you wish.” He waved at a piece of paper displayed upon a high shelf.

  Terence did so. The license was dated three days prior and held the stamp of the Inquisitoria. He frowned at it, glanced at the merchant, who smiled blandly back. The Inquisitoria, Terence had reason to know, was rarely so open-minded, condemning as a matter of routine the slightest patina of corruption. He wondered how much the merchant might have paid for a dispensation.

  “What does that one do?” Irina pointed at an item in a display case. It was a pale orange color, translucent, with a hollow handle, a small lever around which a finger could be wrapped and a cylinder at right angles to the handle. A tiny hole peeked out from the cylinder’s flat front end.

  “And that?” Terence pointed to a small disk, attached to a chain. Something about that small disk drew the eye. It was a polished grey color, perhaps pewter, delicately made, with an opaque blue stone in the center. The stone seemed to shine in the booth’s subdued light.

  The merchant frowned. He peered at Terence from under lowered brows, then seemed to collect himself. Carefully, the merchant removed both objects and placed them upon the display case. The disk, for reasons that Terence could not explain, appealed to him.

  “The chain,” the merchant said, “is silver, of recent construction. The provenance of the disk is unknown. It is presumably a simple piece of jewelry, meant to be worn around the neck or pinned to the chest. The stone in the middle captures the sun’s energy. If you leave it out in the light, the stone will then shine blue for several hours.”

  The disk had a price attached. The price seemed low for such a unique artifact. “I
like it,” Terence said. “I’ll take it.”

  The merchant beamed at him. “It’s an excellent piece. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

  Irina glanced at the disk, shrugged. “Now, tell me about this,” she said. The object that Irina had indicated sat there, orange, alien and inoffensive. The merchant picked it up. “If you remove this small plug, here in the end, the device may be filled with liquid. Then you point it and pull this lever.” The merchant picked up the device, held it in his fist and pulled back on the lever. Nothing appeared to happen. “The liquid is then ejected from the front.”

  “What is the point of this?” Irina asked.

  “My research leads me to believe that this was a child’s plaything. They would douse each other with water.”

  That did sound like fun, Terence thought, particularly on a hot day. Children enjoyed such things. He smiled. Adults, on occasion, as well.

  Irina was staring at the device, fascinated. “Would you like it?” Terence asked.

  She grinned at him. “I can think of a brother or two who deserve a good soaking.”

  “I am uncertain,” the merchant ventured, “that the volume of liquid ejected would be sufficient for this purpose. The hole in the end is rather small, more of a gentle spray than a soaking.”

  Irena considered this for a moment, then shrugged and pointed to a small, round ball, perhaps three centimeters in diameter, lying on a shelf. The ball was multi-colored and appeared to be made of glass. It was surrounded by twenty smaller balls, also covered in multiple, swirling colors. “And what are these?”

  The merchant’s eyes seemed to light up. “These are very valuable. They were used to play a game, most often by children but occasionally by adults. The smaller balls are scattered in a circle and the larger one flicked from the hand. If a player hits a smaller ball with enough force to eject it from the circle, he has captured it for the duration of the game. Whichever player captures the most balls, wins the game.”