Broken Tower Prologue

A lightbulb flickered weakly over the heads of the two people gathered in a sub-basement. Dust covered the space nearly completely, only disturbed by the passing of this room’s rare visitors. Not even insects or cobwebs found their way into this room. There was seemingly nothing that would draw anybody to this room, not even maintenance or custodial staff. There was no equipment in the room, no machines, no tools. Only a barren concrete shell, broken only by a long staircase ascending to a secret door in the basement. A door that was only supposed to open to someone with a key. Almost nobody knew the room was there. In theory, only the two currently in it were supposed to know about it all, but that was an assumption they could no longer afford to make. For the room was not as empty as it should be.

Sticking up out of the floor a few yards from the foot of the steps was a metal rod. But this metal rod was not supposed to be there, having been shoved into the floor violently. Cracks spider-webbed out from the rod, evidence of the force used to embed it. Jagged lines were carved roughly into its surface, and what looked like letters, albeit in a language recognized by neither occupant, ran up and down the length of the rod, etched into its surface roughly. Spreading out in a spiral from the rod were lines painted in red on the floor. A few symbols were spaced throughout the spiral, seemingly random in their placement.

The two people in the room looked at the arrangement with worry. Two elderly folk, one man and one woman, their brows were creased with concern. He was dressed in a business dress clothes and a tweed jacket. A completely bald head reflected the light of the single bulb. She wore conservative clothing of some light material, draping in blue and white around her corpulent frame. The man took a few steps forward towards the rod while the woman fiddled with a small cross hanging around her neck. He stopped at the edge of the painted area and leaned down to examine it. His nose wrinkled and frown lines joined age lines across his face.

“You were right, Mary Alice, it’s blood.”

She snorted derisively. “I’ve been around the block a few times, Hyram. I think I’d know blood when I saw it.” She paused. “But thank you all the same. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and this damnable light isn’t helping.”

Hyram looked back at the old woman as he stood back up and shrugged. He then turned back to the spiral painted in blood and waved his hand over it. Mary Alice hissed in surprise tinged with fear but nothing happened. Hyram nodded. “Yes, it isn’t finished.”

“Hyram, you’re a fool. That was a crazy risk.”

Hyram chuckled. “Perhaps, but there didn’t seem to be enough symbols in place. My guess is our painter ran out of blood. He probably underestimated how much would be needed to keep the lines, sharp, smooth and solid.” He took a step forward into the spiral and paused for a moment, poised to retreat in a hurry if it reacted. He could always have been in error. But once again nothing happened and he approached the rod at the center of the spiral. He could hear the woman behind him open her mouth and start to say something but he cut her off. “Yes, yes, I know. Be careful.”

The man reached into the interior pocket of his tweed and pulled out a handkerchief. He wrapped it around his hand and then closed his eyes for a moment. He held still but there was still the sense of movement about him. The cloth around his fist rippled slightly and its color changed, no longer pristine white but tinted with blue and green swirls. Hyram exhaled slowly as he opened his eyes and focused on the stake in front of him. He reached out with his cloth covered hand for it. When he touched it though, there was a flare of bright red light and he staggered back a few steps. The cloth around his hand caught fire and Hyram hurriedly shook it off with a startled yell. The flaming rag drifted to the ground, where the flames, burning with an unnatural bright red color proceeded to consume it completely, not even leaving behind a pile of ashes. The smell of sulfur filled the small, enclosed space.

“Damnable thing!” Hyram muttered angrily as he retreated to stand next to Mary Alice.

“Well, that didn’t go well.” The woman said, rather unnecessarily. “Now what?”

Hyram sighed. “I do not know. They gave me a primer on the different tools that could be used to open a portal when I was assigned to guard this one. But I don’t know enough to really deal with it by myself.” He sighed again, heavier. “I’m going to need help. Especially since whoever started this no doubt is going to continue trying.”

“But who even knows this is down here?!” Mary Alice asked plaintively, crossing her varicose arms in annoyance.

“I don’t know that either, Mary Alice. That’s why we need to bring in some fresh eyes to the situation. Clearly, whoever it is has managed to sneak it past the two of us. They’ve probably been probing the area for quite some time, trying to locate the portal’s location and gain access to this room.” He shook his head and then adjusted his stance, settling his body low and wide. “Well, I may not be able to remove the rod completely, but I can still slow their progress. The rod is only the first ingredient; they need to finish the circle. Let’s slow that down.”

Hyram held out both arms and began to move them in slow, flat circles parallel to the ground. He began to mutter under his breath, the Latin prayer flowing with easy familiarity off of his lips. “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, sicut era in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto …” The woman shifted nervously behind him but said nothing, not wanting to distract him.

The floor around the spike started to change. It was almost imperceptible at first but then became very obvious as the chanting and arm movements continued. In first one section, and then another, the concrete liquefied, moving in ripples like the surface of water. The spiral in blood that had been painted on its surface shifted like oil atop water, but then gradually sank into the gray concrete, also becoming distorted as the lines and symbols were broken apart by the current until there was no recognizable shapes left. The rod itself though still stood upright in the center, untouched by the gently moving liquid. Sweat beaded Hyram’s forehead as he mimed reaching down and scooping, still repeating the same mantra. The concrete began to roil more furiously, having subsumed the entirety of the blood and symbols that had been painted on it. Now a wave of concrete lifted up off the ground and rushed the rod. When it impacted the concrete there was a red flash and the concrete that touched it solidified for a moment, cracks spreading back across it. The rod was affected by the impact though, tilting to the side. Hyram kept chanting and the cracked concrete became liquid again, flowing back together. He made the scooping motion again, and again, and again. Each time a wave of concrete battered the rod, becoming solid momentarily but the rod began to cant ever further to the side.

Eventually, with a shout of triumph from Hyram, the rod toppled over and was pulled under by the concrete. With a few more circles of his arm, now slowing down, the concrete settled back down. It rehardened. As it did so, the drying concrete released heat, and the temperature in the room shot up. Both Hyram and Mary Alice were sweating profusely at this point as the man slowly stopped his motion. Before him was a calm circle of unbroken concrete, with no sign of blood or rod showing on its surface. Only the fact that this surface alone out of the room was completely dust free indicated that anything unusual had taken place. Hyram tried to stand back up straight, but staggered with a groan. Mary Alice stepped forward quickly to support him.

“Even I could tell that was too hard for you, Hyram.” She scolded him. “You shouldn’t push yourself like that. There was no guarantee that wouldn’t backfire terribly, and then where would we have been? The blood, fine. That was a good idea. But you should have left the rod alone.”

Hyram chuckled softly as he looked back at her. He leaned gratefully against her support as he breathed heavily. He stood back up fully on his own with another groan. “It was worth a shot. I like to think that whenever whoever was doing this realizes his rod is gone, he’ll be very frustrated. Sadly, it’s just buried, so if he’s smart he’ll be able to retrieve it. But we can hope that that delay will be longer than if I’d just gotten rid of the blood.” He shook his head. “I’m too old to be the only one involved in this. I need help.” He ran a hand over his bald head as he turned to face the narrow staircase ascending back towards the basement. “Come along, Sister. Let’s go back up. It’s past time we both went home and I need to reformat our keys. Having to figure that out again will hopefully slow our intruder down even further. Give me time to get our helper ready.”

The nun looked over her shoulder at the magic user in confusion as she went up the steps. “You seem like you already know who it’s going to be.”

He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve had my eye on a new recruit all year. He looks promising. I guess I’ll just have to accelerate the process a little. We don’t exactly have many other resources in the area who can logically be shifted around.” As they reached the top of the steps and passed through the narrow entry, he reached over and flicked off the single light switch nobody else in the building was even supposed to know about. The small concrete box buried deep underground once again disappeared into complete blackness.