THE STAIRS were littered with parts of the stone-skeleton guardians. They were no longer articulated, but they yet possessed a semblance of life, shifting about like winter-torpid lizards, vibrating, burrowing back into the stone floors and walls. The tower itself continued to quake, which concerned Hsheng a great deal, although it didn’t appear to alarm her father in the slightest. His step was strong as they climbed the stairs, navigating the unnatural debris with ease. He seemed, in fact, more robust than she had ever seen him, which was at odds with the peculiar and uncharacteristic fatalism of his recent comments. During the ascent, however, he didn’t speak at all. When they reached the top floor he went directly to the steep set of steps—almost a ladder, really—that led to the roof. Hsheng followed him up.
The wind had risen, and the stars were more than half-blotted by an approaching storm. Thunder shuddered the air, and the stone beneath her feet quivered in response. Far below, the huge hole made by the Beast had become the draw hole of a furnace; fire licked skyward from it, and the roof tiles surrounding it glowed dull red. The moon, huge and yellow-orange, was only moments from passing behind the storm. In the east, the rim of the world was faintly visible, the herald of approaching dawn.
“I was young when we fought the war,” her father said, staring up at the moon. “More terrible sorcery you have never seen. Forests flashed into flame and burned to charcoal in instants. Seas boiled and climbed the heavens as storms of living steam. Mountains fell from the sky.
“We won. But the cost. The elders died, all of them, consumed by the very conjurings that destroyed the enemy.” He smiled and glanced at her.
“Did they know, I wonder? What the price of the war would be? That their children would have to leave the world of their birth for another? They said nothing of it. They made no plans. I was an apprentice then. I fought alongside my master. I saw him die. I saw my world die. And only when it was over did we, the survivors, realize what we had to do.”
He shook his head. “We were children. We knew nothing. But we did it. We gathered in this tower and in it we came here. We settled in this place, and we built a fortress, then a city, then an empire.”
“Yes, you did,” Hsheng said.
“But it wasn’t easy,” he said. “In the early days, we almost perished. Until.”
“Until what?”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I thought at first I was going mad,” he said. “That the voice in my ear was my own. When I realized the truth, it was almost too late, but I did have a choice. I made my decision, and all that has happened in the centuries since has been built on that choice.”
“What choice, Father?”
“He was feeble, at first. Feeble enough that if we had all combined our might, we could have destroyed him. But then we, too, would have died, overrun by barbarians. The last of our world, the Moon World, would have perished. The end of our people and our sacred ways. So I accepted him. Nourished him until he was strong enough to nourish me. Our people grew mighty.”
“Are you talking about the xual of the Earth Center Tower?” she asked. “Are you talking about Nalzhu?”
His head shifted in the slightest of nods. “I’m talking about Nalzhu,” he said. “But he is no xual.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought he was the first of the tower guardians. That you fought and tamed the spirit of this place, this valley, and made it serve us, as the river and the soil serve us.”
“That is the story,” he said. “But it is not true. I could never tell the truth. Not until now. Now, when all is done, and my time is finally at its end. When yours, daughter, is beginning.”
“Mine? What do you mean? Father, if Nalzhu is not a xual, then what is he?”
“He came with us,” her father whispered. She heard the tremble in his voice. For a moment she could not find her own.
“With us?” she finally asked. “From the Moon World? You mean, he’s—”
The tower shook so violently she almost lost her footing. Her father put his other hand on her other shoulder and then drew her in close. It was shocking; as far back as she could remember, he had never hugged her.
“Emperor?” she asked. “Father?”
“I made a bargain with Nalzhu,” he said. “At the very start of it. A bargain that included us all. Which made the Empire possible. In my youth and arrogance I thought I would never have to pay my end of it, that I could defer it forever. But that was long ago, and I am no longer young. All debts come due. And I am finally happy to pay them.” He squeezed her tighter. “Farwell,” he said. “My daughter. My old friend.”
Then the stone of the tower gave way beneath their feet, and she was falling, still in the circle of her father’s arms.