XII: The Tower

Handel W. Care

Seagulls rose up in a wave of sound and motion at the intrusion on their resting ground. It was obvious that they were unused to the presence of man out here amidst the wave assaulted reefs, despite living in the shadow of one of their constructs. Amidst the swirling flashes of white wings in the darkness I saw the stripes of the lighthouse tower, red shaded to black in the dim light and only appearing from their invisibility between the easily identifiable white marks when my torch strayed onto it, or in the occasional brief flash of approaching lightning. Spotted white also, in this case from the guano of years, the rock beneath my feet made solid, if occasionally treacherous, footing and thus had requested rather than demanded the bulk of my attention up to then. With the goal so close at hand, and the circling birds that had startled me enough to raise my heartbeat a tad having caused a halt anyway, I stood and took stock of the surroundings. Being in good enough shape to have raised only a slight sweat despite the distance I'd had to hike in these conditions, mostly due to the encumbering wet weather gear I wore, my breathing settled quickly as I looked at the sea, sky and tower before me.
Of primary interest was the beacon station itself, dark and powerless, its light quenched and duty neglected. Around the tower tide and windswept waves battered at both the steadfast walls themselves and the encompassing reef, loosing a spray which was fine and unceasing in its slicking of my raincoat, the rocks and my uncovered face and hair. For the moment it was the major source of sky borne water, but when the storm reached me I expected a downpour that would have me cursing my supervisor if I was caught out in it. In fact, I was amazed that I'd gotten off so lightly - other than some ground mist earlier on the causeway the winds and intermittent drizzle had been all the elements had deigned to throw at me thus far. To think I could have been enjoying the sound on my own roof if I hadn't been on call tonight. Damn luck of the draw.
The booming crash of water's concussion on stone also filled the air, muting the annoyed squawks and frantic fluttering of the gulls. I thought it peculiar that the birds wouldn't take to the mainland and more sheltered conditions with such an abominable load of weather so obviously building, but zoology isn't my forte, so I simply shrugged at the idiocies of the avian mind as I warded off a few low swoops with my free arm. It was a surprise when I contacted one gull with my forearm and I swore, both in shock and at my unintended brutishness, watching in embarrassment as the bird hit the hard ground and proceed to flap pitifully. Not wanting to see whether a mercy killing was in order - wounded and in this weather seemed a nasty mixture - I turned my attention to getting to the access door and unlocking it, torch bobbing wildly in my haste. Inside, I slammed and bolted the door against both the elements and the tremors of guilt which ran through me, then sought for the light switch. A crack of thunder sounded even through the thick reinforced walls as I put my hand on the drop switch, causing me to pause, laugh shakily at myself and then activate the lights.
The flood of cold brilliance after the darkness left me blinking and glad that a power supply problem was not at fault for the tower's dereliction of duty. With a sigh I plumped myself down in one of the kitchen chairs as my eyes adjusted and swung my backpack onto the table. Something clattered on to the floor, causing me to startle briefly, and I bent down to pick up what turned out to be a set of oversized cards, no doubt left by some other poor sap who'd had to come out there. Embossed on the top of the jet black box was some sort of design that caught the light badly, never showing itself properly. I slipped it into a side pocket as I wrestled with the buckles in the main section of the backpack and checked my equipment - tools, wire, replacement bulbs. All seemed in order, so I leant back to gather my thoughts and regulate my temperature some before ascending the tightly spiralling staircase to my right. Layers of waterproof clothing over my standard clothes was a large part of my heating problem, leading me to drop the coat over the chair. Laziness made me keep the reflective yellow trousers on over my more comfortable pair - I just couldn't be bothered.
As my gaze flitted over the remainder of the level I took in the old gas cooker, the bench top with pumps for fresh and salt water and what looked like an old icebox. All appeared to have seen more upkeep than I would have thought likely, what with the lighthouse being fully automated some decades past
"They'd hardly get a housekeeper in," I thought out loud as I rose to my feet and wandered over to have a closer look, running my hands over the age tarnished but relatively clean surface. Unlike the sharp sounds of chair or boot on floor the murmured words seemed instantly subsumed into the bulk of the tower - unwelcome. Frowning at my fanciful impressions and pointless wool gathering - while also dismissing the possibility that was indeed remnants of lemon scourer beneath my fingers - I turned back to the table, grasped my equipment and made quick, noisy progress up the metal and wood spiral to the upper levels. Once again there was a surprising lack of dust on both the rails and the steps, the few drips of water from my hair splashing down and running in rivulets without impediment from collected detritus.
Although the few doors I passed before the uppermost were closed, a sense of habitation that I'd been able to shrug off below grew with each step. The air seemed fresher than it should and when I placed my hand on the trapdoor to gain entry to the beacon room I felt like nothing so much as an intruder sneaking around while the owners were asleep. As I pushed up against the stained wood and into the dark space beyond, I decided it was definitely too late at night to be wandering around places like this.
Light sprang back at me as I raised myself up through the floor - the reflective housing for the bulb was pointed in my direction and catching my torchlight nicely. Dropping the beam to the ground and blinking frantically I waited for the images on my retinas to fade before having a carefully indirectly lit look at the malfunctioning apparatus which had brought me here. Blinded, the noise of the storm battering against the surrounding glass was enhanced even more. Apparently it had risen even in the few minutes I'd been in the protection of the lower tower levels. After opening the housing it was quite obvious that someone had simply removed all the wires necessary to disable access to the timing mechanism. With no way of seeing the time passing, the light would remain off and unmoving, making for a possibly dangerous lack of a navigational point for night going ships.
"Don't worry, no one's out there," said a man's voice from the darkness, "you'd have to be a fool to be in these waters in such shitty stuff anyway, and fools of that nature are best culled for the good of all."
"That's a fairly judgemental attitude," I replied carefully, trying to orient on the position of my unexpected companion while remaining crouched beside the tower's central bulk of machinery. My grip on the heavy torch in my left hand tightened. "One might even say antisocial," I added as no immediate reply occurred. With the ever increasing winds and rain assaulting the glass surrounds of the beacon room it was actually quite noisy and thus difficult to pinpoint his direction, even as he spoke again.
"It depends on which section of society you're talking about," came the dry answer. "Some people expect certain things - as if they're owed simply because they have an opposable thumb, stand upright and can string a few words together. I don't see it myself. Nothing's entirely for free. You should earn your own way, in one manner or another, or payment will be demanded from you. Depend on it."
A lightning flash illuminated the place for a moment, just before the thunder - it was almost on top of us by then - cutting through any further comments he might have made. Despite my wish to remain as motionless and non-threatening as possible I involuntarily jerked my head up. In the edges of the flash I could make out a man sitting, facing out into the wild sea, his knees drawn up to the sides and right hand holding some blunt object; then darkness reclaimed me again until my eyes readjusted.
"Ah. Yes," I said, struggling to grasp the thread of the strange conversation again even as I rose slowly. "Work. As you may or may not have guessed, that's what I'm attempting to do here. I do have extras, but might you have any idea where the original fuses are?" I shifted around slowly, rising properly and letting the torch hand hang limp but ready. Keeping the beam low and not directly pointed at him enough light reached his position for me to realise that it was a bottle in his hand, which he put to the dark mass of his head as I watched.
"Sorry about that." The man's tone was believably apologetic. "I'll put them back when I'm finished here. I really didn't think anyone would notice just one night, let alone bother to send out a repairman in this." The bottle might have sloshed as he gestured out into the storm, but the water on glass from outside made much more of a noise. "Still, you don't seem to be any part of what I'm waiting for. Who are you?" His back was still towards me, vulnerable and with no menace in the relaxed posture, yet I found myself answering as if in fear.
"Matthew Blake, with the Harbour Board," I stammered out through another thunder crash, feeling like I'd been caught smoking in school uniform by Mr Nairn again.
"Very good," said his voice, only then it was by my ear and in front of me was nothing but a hipflask sitting alone on the floor. "Well, Matthew Blake, you've done your job and can go now, back to your warm bed and comforting dreams, happy in the thought of the overtime you've garnered and the good will your supervisor will owe you for such company spirit..." As he spoke each of his words sunk me deeper into a lassitude from which I could not shake myself, their meaning creating ripples that spread as if to the confines of a pool, splashing away that which was no longer needed and replacing it with the weight and consequence of their own. Then, before I completely surrendered, before the evaporation of select thoughts and memories was completed, he stopped in his mellifluous tirade, enchanted words falling to a murmur indistinguishable amidst the continuing batter of elements against the glass. Still somehow linked, I looked to where I knew the stranger did and saw a vessel of incomplete aspect making its way through lightning and reefs with a directness that belied the condition of both the winds and itself - as if it were they that made way rather than its battered and holed hulk. On the foredeck I saw a number of figures, seemingly as uncertain about their tangibility as the sail tattered schooner - one moment a part of wind and wave, the next the only real thing in the universe of darkness and luminescent spray. Their objective was obviously the building in which we stood, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather slash through me as I realised this. The man beside me stiffened palpably and my mind was fully my own again. I became aware of an iron grip about my right biceps and stood stock still, not from fear or conscious decision, but from an inability to decide, so dubious was I as to the state of my own mind by now.
"No time for games, it seems," he said, even as the wreck beached itself smoothly on the jagged rocks below us and began to disgorge its singular crew. "I'd hoped that I was wrong about you passing through before events began to have their effect, but it appears that I was right after all. You have to get out of here, and with as many wits as God has seen fit to endow you available. Down the stairs. Now."
Strong hands grasped me in a way that beggared no refute and the trapdoor sprung open before me as we rushed down the ladder and then to the stairs. Helpless as a child in the grasp of a parent I found myself deposited again within the base room of the tower.
"Bollocks," he distinctly muttered.
Despite the unearthly speed we had descended at there was already something beyond the door. Whatever it was knocked politely, as if paying a visit to a friend or colleague rather than invading the stronghold of some other supernatural entity, yet with enough force to be easily heard through the solid metal. For a moment I grasped at the hope that my experiences in the tower above had been some sort of hallucination brought on by tiredness and the tumultuous weather. Perhaps this was merely another Harbour Board employee sent to help me out, or the local that had called in the malfunction checking up on me. As this thought took hold I found myself stepping towards the door, unrestrained by my colleague from above stairs; indeed, he was no nowhere to be seen, although he'd been present but a moment before.
The bolts moved far more easily under my hands than expected, and I was unprepared for the gales outside smashing the heavy access door wide open and flipping me out onto the slick rocks. Even so, I was merely winded, surprised and beginning to get wet until the orderly line of shadowed shapes passing by my recovering form began to impinge on my awareness. Being in a position to do little else I watched and shrunk from the apparitions, coiling my legs for a spring away down the rocky peninsula if I thought it a viable option, or, indeed, a last chance. In the light ebbing out from the tower I could make out portions of them - glimmers of eyes, swords ready for action, cloaks of rich finery and hobo's rags - but only for the last moment before they entered within. It was the last figure to enter that paused and turned so that his face was more easily seen. From the side light poured across his features even as the incessant rains did, showing a face that had just jostled me down the stairs, alcohol fumes wreathed about it, voice commanding, beard dripping, eyes cold blue to match the blade he now held in one hand to salute me. Eyes like all those I had just glimpsed, set on a purpose I would not know of were I given the chance. He turned and entered after what must have been a shorter moment than it seemed; it was only then that I realised his clothes were wrong, that it couldn't be the man I had first met, and I remembered blade upon blade, the same blade, held in hands as white as stone, and I wondered what corner of damnation I had strayed into.
A clattering of steel on steel came from within accompanied by a laugh - a man's laugh, but with all the joy of a child about to set to play. It was a sound too natural to be forced, too enthusiastic to be ignored, and therefore it was answered. From above, to left, to right a screeching wail sounded, evoking all the emotions that the laughter had not. My hands about my ears I ran heedlessly from the tower along the treacherous causeway, the banshee screams resounding still from their directionless source until I came up against a still wall of fog that had not been there previously. Blessed release as the howls stopped warred within me as fear of the unknown beyond the wholly unnatural weather phenomenon took hold. I turned back towards the lighthouse to see that it was already fading into the mists, its edges becoming less precise even as I strained my senses to hear the smashing of windows and see the falling bodies of battle foes, weapons still in their hands. There was a stuttering flash as lightning struck the already damaged roof and it burst into flames, highlighting the figures, the land and sea around and the tower itself back into stark relief for a moment. Grey then wrapped itself around me and I knew nothing more.

How long I drifted I have no idea, but waking in my bed was a relief beyond compare. The previous night's actions were something of a blur, caught up as they were in what had obviously been an extremely intense dream. Shifting lazily on my sheets I eventually gathered enough energy to rise and shower, changing into clean clothes and not bothering to shave for the weekend. Salty garments were thrown into the pile in the corner in the hopes of another burst of usefulness. It was too soon after waking to be more organised than that. The pack, on the other hand, contained Harbour Board property, and would need to be handed in in good nick on my next day of work. I dumped the contents out onto the unmade bed and sifted through them for my personal additions and the report book. Best to write up while thing were... well, maybe later then, I chuckled to myself as my hand grasped the sharp edge of the heavily bound book.
A large, black card box came up as I raised my hand. No book, this. The design, as in my recollection, still refused to show itself properly in the light as I pulled the top away and stared dumbstruck at the first card inside. Detailed in fine colours and a style I'd never seen before was a Tarot card, one of the Major Arcana known as the Tower. As I remembered, the central piece was beset by wind, water, fire and lightning. Men fell for eternity from its higher reaches and one face could be seen, mouth open in what could be a laugh or a scream. I would have thought it a snapshot were it not for the artistry involved in its making, obvious as I held the piece of pasteboard closer to the light. For a moment I almost fancied I saw the clouds swirl and the waves jump a frame or two. There was the briefest scent of brine and the faint caw of a gull. It became evident that I should have stayed in bed. The thought occurred to me that I had, and that this was just a continuation on a running dream theme. Good thought.
I let myself fall onto the bed, causing cards to spread out across its width. The Hermit, playing chess, passed by my eyes, closely followed by The Devil, looking more like Stalin than his usual likeness, then a Page wrestling his symbol from a monkey and a slew of others. Finally settled from my upset the last to come into my field of view was a lord of armaments, soldier and warrior - The Charioteer. I blinked. It looked more real than the sheet on which it rested, drawing close to encompassing my world view in a few seconds. Black engulfed my senses this time... and then took me away with it. 

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The Charioteer

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