The Towers of Knoll Read online

  The Towers of Knoll

  The Life & Death Cycle, Volume 3

  E.S. Barrison

  Published by E.S. Barrison, 2022.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE TOWERS OF KNOLL

  First edition. August 14, 2022.

  Copyright © 2022 E.S. Barrison.

  ISBN: 979-8985363463

  Written by E.S. Barrison.

  Copyright © 2022 by E.S. Barrison

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  E.S. Barrison

  www.esbarrison-author.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Content Warning: This book is rated 16+ due to violence, sexual content, and language.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  The Towers of Knoll/E.S. Barrison. — 1st ed.

  Dedicated to Grandma Rhoda & Grandpa David

  The story isn’t over yet. And I’ll keep on writing it for you.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Ghost on the Hill

  Petals

  Wanted for Cornstalks

  Vanishing Heads

  The Boxcar

  Aeterno Village

  Swallowed

  A Carnival of Two

  Quarantined

  Reclaimed

  Mist and Masks

  Rose and Ada

  The Green Tent

  Fallen Queen

  The Talking Skull

  Marked by Sunrise

  Oxidation

  On the Backs of Peonies

  Power and Order

  The Melting Woman

  Trapped in the Circus

  He Who Fears Horses

  Falling

  True Colors

  Amputated

  Liquid Conviction

  Manure Duty

  The Captain’s Son

  Auras

  Edge of the Necrowood

  Shades of Green

  Bitter Taste

  A Yellow Shadow

  Rules of the Apothecary

  The Final Bow

  Vessel

  Arrival in Yellow

  A Shield of Color

  Enlightenment

  Sulfur

  Dragon Against Demon

  Reunited by Truth

  A Hero in Yellow

  Mother

  Magnets

  Lifeblood

  Constant Color

  The Orphan Hero

  Linked

  The Dragon’s Return

  Balancing on the Edge

  What Must Come

  Warfare

  Sacrifice

  Feeding Time

  The Purest Cleanse

  Despondence

  Clairvoyancy

  Captain of the Ship

  How to Mask an Attack

  Stronghold

  Monochrome

  Knoll’s Fall

  Intertwined

  Not So Evil

  Master of the Mist

  Want to find out what happens next?

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Ghost on the Hill

  Yaz hummed as she stood on her tiptoes to clean the tchotchkes wobbling on the shelf. With every buzzing movement of the tower beneath her, the knickknacks threatened to dive from the shelf. As they neared the edge, Yaz caught them, shifting them to the back of the shelves again before moving on to her next task.

  Unlike the collection of goods in the moving tower, Yaz had long since learned to navigate the tower with ease. She ignored each lurch and twist of the engine below, focused instead on her chores. The sooner she finished, the sooner she’d be able to race to the platform on top of the tower to see where they had traveled this time.

  As she dusted the last silver orb on the shelf, the tower skidded to a halt. Yaz caught the orb as it slipped off the shelf, stumbling herself into the nearby desk. The tower creaked once, and she regained her footing, a smile navigating across her lips.

  “We’re here!” Yaz exclaimed to herself. She replaced the orb, dropped her duster on the ground, and raced up the winding stairwell towards the platform on the roof.

  For weeks, she’d been daydreaming about their arrival in Aeterno Village. She had found pictures of the glorious Tower of Ab Aeterno on the cliff overlooking the village in the books on Mr. Nasr’s shelf. The sea glowed beneath it, casting a vibrant glow from the Effluvium. Per the books, the Effluvium served as the guiding mist of Life and Death. Yaz wasn’t sure what that meant, but she could picture the mist rising from the sea, reaching to the tower. Some people even said that the tower was the tallest point in the nation of Rosada.

  She pushed open the hatched door and climbed onto the platform. This was the first place in all Rosada she yearned to see. So far, the nation had been boring. It didn’t have the seaside glass cities of Proveniro or the tropical jungles of Perennes, or the haunting swamps of Volfium. Instead, Rosada sat dead, brown, and crumbling.

  Certainly, seeing Ab Aeterno would change that.

  She raced to the edge of the platform. Smoke wavered in the air, suffocating the landscape. Yaz’s heart fell to her stomach. No tower waited for her. No glamor. Nothing.

  “Where is it?” she whispered, removing her glasses to clean them. With the smudges gone, she examined the landscape again. Still nothing. For a few moments longer, she stared into the mist, willing for the tower to appear. Only shadows moved about the air—ghosts, monsters, and beasts. Not real.

  Yaz shook her head, then raced to the floor beneath the platform, shouting, “Mr. Nasr!?! Ms. Kai!?!”

  Below, Yaz threw open the door to the navigation deck. Mr. Nasr sat in the cockpit, staring through the navigation window and stroking the stubble on his chin. Beside him, Ms. Kai stood with her back to Yaz, her hand on a lever to direct the tower to its formal rest.

  Yaz took a quick glimpse at the map on the wall; an electric bulb blinked just over Aeterno Village. Yaz loved that map. Ever since Mr. Nasr and Ms. Kai took her from Jrin Ayl, a small island at the tip of the continent, she’d loved counting each location on their map. They’d raised her as an apprentice to their little shop, promising her protection, glitz, and glamor.

  Sure, they’d protected her for the last five years, but glitz and glamor? No. Most of the time, it had been work.

  “Mr. Nasr! Ms. Kai!” Yaz caught her breath in the entrance. “Where’s the tower? You said there would be a tower!”

  Mr. Nasr glared over his shoulder. He was a stout fellow with a round face, uneven stubble, red eyes, and a bald head. Meanwhile, Ms. Kai bore a much kinder gaze, her one blue eye and one green eye watching Yaz with sadness. When Yaz first met Ms. Kai, she thought she was a goddess.

  “We know Yasmin,” Ms. Kai said. “We shall not be staying long.”

  “What? Why? Where is it?”

  “It’s gone. That means it is dangerous here,” Mr. Nasr explained.

  “But we’ve been traveling for such a long time!” Yaz bemoaned. “You promised we would stay here for a couple of days!”

  Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr exchanged a look. Yaz always thought it was the look a king and queen might share in a story. When she first told Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr that, they laughed, bu
t their interest in such stories wavered as they grew closer to Rosada.

  “We do need supplies,” Mr. Nasr grunted.

  “Yes,” Ms. Kai agreed. “It might be best we stop here for a day or so.”

  Yaz clapped her hands in excitement. “Thank you!”

  Mr. Nasr turned and snapped with ferocity in his voice, “But you will stay here, Yasmin.”

  Her heart dropped even further. “But I wanna explore!”

  “Not here.”

  “Yasmin, dear child.” Ms. Kai knelt beside her. “You know we just want to protect you, right? Aeterno is not a safe place for children to play. When we reach Siskin’s Corner in the north, then you can go play. Okay?”

  “A’ight,” Yaz mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “Yes, Ms. Kai!”

  “Very good. Now go finish stocking the shelves. We may have a couple customers come by.” Ms. Kai tussled Yaz’s hair, then returned to her gears and levers. Mr. Nasr stared at Yaz for a moment longer, his crimson eyes evaluating her every movement, then turned his chair around to face the window.

  Yaz continued pouting as she left the cockpit. Why didn’t they ever let her have any fun? She’d been in this tower for weeks now!

  She dragged her feet as she returned to the ground floor. Usually, she took time looking at each of the pictures and artifacts on the wall. Despite living here for years, she still hadn’t learned all the little stories each piece told. They bled of magic, of disease, but all of history. She hoped one day her own collection, hidden beneath her bed, would be as remarkable.

  She continued to the ground floor, back into the curiosities. When alone, Yaz often dillydallied between the shelves to admire the oddities. People from far and wide ventured to see Gisela’s Curio Shoppe of Oddities Galore. Items abound occupied the shelves, ranging from motorized toys and mechanized Year Glasses to strange artifacts rumored to hold magic.

  Sometimes, Yaz disappeared into the farthest corner of the shop, where Ms. Kai kept old animal skeletons, geodes, and stones. Each of those skeletons told a story, and sometimes she wondered if their ghosts lived in the shop with their skulls. When Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr weren’t looking, Yaz would sit on the floor with the skulls and play with them, just like her dollies upstairs. She named each of them; Miss Pecker the bird skull, Arnold the deer jawbone, and Elizabeth the dehydrated lizard corpse had been her longtime favorites.

  As she reached the bottom step, Yaz considered hiding in the shelves to play. It would be more interesting than cleaning the shop. But her attention drifted towards the doorway. She doubted that Mr. Nasr or Ms. Kai would notice her slip out of the shoppe, and she’d already done her chores this morning, too excited to sleep.

  She refused to keep hiding.

  “I’ll be right back,” Yaz whispered as she pulled on her boots. Checking once more over her shoulder, she creaked open the front door and hopped out of the doorway onto the riverbank.

  A paved pathway waited beside the river, leading down to the town. Yaz didn’t care about the shabby looking village; her attention fell solely across the river to the hillside.

  Now that she was out of the tower, the image before her told a different story. Burnt trees and plumes of smoke garnished the hillside that once held the Tower of Ab Aeterno. Did it move just like Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr’s lopsided tower, with its mismatched pieces and crooked windows? Did it have as many smokestacks, filling the air with gray? Yaz closed her eyes, trying to picture the sight, but only saw Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr’s little tower.

  With her imagination failing her, Yaz abandoned her thoughts and hurried over the rickety bridge across the river. She held her breath at each step, her stomach churning as the bridge rocked from one way to another. Even though the river slept beneath the bridge, the last thing Yaz wanted was to fall. Mr. Nasr keeps promising to teach me to swim, but he hasn’t yet. I should remind him.

  She breathed a sigh of relief once she arrived on the other side of the river. I made it! She raced over the trampled path and began her ascent up the hill, glancing back to look at her tower.

  Unlike the Guard towers that frequented the landscape of Rosada, Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr’s tower comprised a hodgepodge of building blocks. It started with a base, followed by a house, only to be topped with a piece of an airship. Each part had its own charm. When they first took Yaz from her home, she stared at it with wide eyes. Even now, she admired it.

  But she really wanted to see the Tower of Ab Aeterno.

  As Yaz ascended the hill, she pulled at the charred branches and pocketed a few rocks. Leaves and ash skirted through the air, catching a few of Yaz’s curls and hitting her glasses as she walked. Sometimes, when she walked in these forests, Yaz swore she heard ghosts. When she mentioned it to Ms. Kai, the woman laughed it off as a childish ploy. But why did they call her name so often?

  Why did they pull at her now?

  Yasmin…

  Yasmin…

  Help me, Yasmin…

  She shook her head and broke a branch, using it as a sword to fight off the constant voices in her head. If Ms. Kai told her they didn’t exist, then Yaz believed her. It was time to stop being a ridiculous child.

  Yaz bushwhacked through the brambles, arriving at the top of the hill before the sun hit its apex. She collected a few odd rocks but nothing of interest; it wasn’t like the forest held any real relics—at least not like what Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr sold.

  As she parted the last bushes, she entered a clearing obscured by smoke and soot. A skeletal building stood against the backdrop of smoke. Yaz wandered inside, checking the pews for anything of interest. Every footstep rang against the charred marble floor, but other than the stone pews and broken glass, nothing remained of the old Temple.

  Yaz scuffed her shoe on the pavement in frustration. How could there be nothing here? This was where the Tower of Ab Aeterno once stood! Something had to remain. They couldn’t have taken everything.

  She passed through the doorway at the far end of the atrium. Rather than entering another part of the Temple, though, the door took her back onto the hillside.

  Yaz exited the atrium. Just outside sat a giant sinkhole filled with an odd silver liquid. She gazed into it; the surface was as reflective as a mirror, and her reflection stared back at her with the same intrigue as an actual person.

  Can I bottle this up and bring it to Ms. Kai? Then she won’t be mad at me because it’s so pretty! Yaz glanced around the area. She had brought no vials, and no cups or containers sat anywhere near the pool. Maybe I can run back to the tower and—

  Bubbling pulled Yaz away from her thoughts. The liquid rippled, and out emerged a round white object.

  What’s that?

  The water thrashed, bringing the white object to shore. With trembling fingers, Yaz lifted the object from the ground.

  But this was no object.

  In her hands sat none other than a human head. Rotting skin composed half the head, while the other half was nothing but a skeleton. Yaz’s mouth dropped, and she caught a scream from exiting her throat.

  Is this a ghost? Her fingers tightened around the skull as she scanned the water for the rest.

  But there was no skin, no blood, and no body.

  Only the head.

  Yaz poked at the head’s one closed eyelid. Another yelp lodged itself in her throat.

  The eyelid flickered open to reveal an empty white eye. For a moment, the head even opened its mouth, and a deep fog exited from its lips.

  “Ghost…” Yaz whispered.

  The head blinked.

  “Are you a ghost?”

  No response.

  She held the head up to eye level. “Are you alone?”

  The eyelid fell again.

  She pondered for a moment. How did the head get here? Was it alone, like Ms. Kai’s other skeletons? She couldn’t leave it here to rot.

  “I’m gonna take you home and clean you up, a’ight? You can spend time with my dolly, then we can find
your body or something so you can walk. A’ight?” If it disagreed with her ideas, it gave no sign. Yaz removed her coat and swaddled the head like a babe. “I’m going to call you Sir Jama, a’ight?”

  No reaction.

  Yaz didn’t know if she expected one. It didn’t matter. She would bring the head to Ms. Kai and Mr. Nasr, and her caretakers would be happy beyond measure!

  Or maybe I’ll keep you as my secret.

  Yaz placed the skull in her bag, but before she had the chance to turn away, the water rippled again. This time, the ripples thrashed against the edge of the lake and kept moving back and forth like a pendulum.

  Yaz ducked behind a bush near the pool. Just as she made refuge, a creature burst from the opposite side of the water. It landed on four legs, shook its body, then rolled over at the water’s edge. It whined once.

  Then barked.

  Yaz perked up in her spot. A dog?

  The water swelled again. This time, two humanoid figures ascended from the water, dripping like phantoms. The taller figure reached the basin, rolled onto the ground beside the dog, then turned back to the water. It helped the second smaller figure from the water. They embraced tight. Yaz swore they kissed.

  The dog beside them whined.

  But Yaz couldn’t move. Part of her wanted to dash away, while the other part wanted to scream.

  She watched as the figures stood there for what felt like forever. They spoke in quiet, hushed voices, their gazes fixated on the silver pool. She circled over to them, watching from the brambles. The taller figure, a man, stood hunched over as he spoke with the shorter figure, a woman. They looked odd and out of place. The woman wore a nightgown, her frizzy dark brown hair hanging in an uneven braid, a thick cowl hanging around her neck. Meanwhile, the man’s curls stuck out in every direction, and his suspenders hung loose on his side as if he never finished putting on his clothes.

  After a bit of time, the man finally turned to leave. The woman stopped him and whispered under her breath.

  They kissed again.

  Then she let go of him, her fingers lingering on his arm, and approached the edge of the pool. She placed her fingers into the liquid.