The Tower of the Forgotten by Sara M. Harvey Read Free Book Online Page A

dark hair swirled around her solemn face stood
on the small rise where Portia’s tent had once stood.
Portia recognized her from the convent; yes, her name was Radinka, and she’d had a penchant for magic.
    Now, she was some sort of conduit. Behind Portia, Nigel growled and swore, pacing
back and forth across the tower’s top floor.
    Whatever
Nigel thought the plan was, it appears that there are other plans afoot."
    "We have to get down there, we have to save her!"
    Portia
watched the blue glow spread along the copper lines half-buried along the
perimeter of the circus.
    The
light encircled the grounds and shot out through the rolling, grey waves. It
wrapped around the base of the tower, quickly winding its way into a tight
spiral up the walls.
    "Time
to go." Portia scooped Imogen into her arms and
leapt from the balcony, carrying them both toward an outcropping on the
hillside overlooking Avernus.
    She
touched down on the sun-warmed rock and watched as the glow fully engulfed the
tower. The walls seemed to dissolve—at least the walls
between the living world and that of the dead.
    From
within the tents and trailers came the familiar faces of the circus: the
roustabouts and midway barkers, her fellow sideshow freaks and Aseneth, even
Halford and Quentin, all wandering the same direction: toward the tall,
copper-clad obelisk situated in the center of the courtyard near her pavilion.
From their vantage point, the layout was even clearer than what the circus
plans had shown.
    A
second wave of figures rose up out of the shadows, from the roads leading in
from Capitola-by-the-Sea, from the sandy dunes along the seashore, and from the
foothills below them. These figures came shakily, often stumbling. While the
circus denizens had moved like sleepwalkers, these new additions shambled like
the walking dead. They ringed the circle, creating a wall between those inside
and escape. No one looked remotely interested in escape.
    Ringing
the obelisk, they began to strip. Symbols and sigils far too familiar to Portia’s eyes painted the unclothed bodies. They writhed against
one another, kissing and biting and roughly groping in a fierce orgy around the
central point of Avernus. Quentin brought out his fountain pen and Halford his
blue architect’s pencil. Like a
well-choreographed dance, they began to write on one another. Not just a mess
of symbols, but long passages and stanzas of poetry. As they inscribed the words
onto one another, the letters began to glow. The illumination was subtle at
first, and Portia did not think Imogen could perceive it, but soon it grew
brighter. Imogen touched Portia’s wrist and pointed.
    "How
do we stop this?" Portia asked.
    Imogen
shook her head. "I don’t know."
    "Can
we break the connection between Radinka and the circle?"
    "Not
without jeopardizing her safety."
    "That’s a risk we may have to take,"
Portia said as they touched down just beyond the perimeter of the circle. "These people are going to be consumed!"
    When
the two circus owners had covered one another entirely with words, they dropped
their writing tools and fell against each other with a heaving groan. Halford
wrapped his arms around the obelisk, pressing his body against it, while
Quentin came at him from behind, gripping him firmly by the hipbones and
driving himself deep into Halford’s body. As they rutted
in the street, the shimmer of the words grew in intensity, cascading off of
their skin into glittering blue lights like fireflies. The frenetic energy
infected the others as they, too, began to copulate with their nearest
neighbors, regardless of gender, appearance, or age.
    The
glow spread out from the center of the promenade, snaking across the electric
wires and through the copper embedded in the buildings and tents. Blood, tears,
and the fluids of sex saturated the earth and seemed to instigate the circus
denizens into more frenzied fornication. The light streamed out from contact
point to contact point, creating a vast