Chapter 67: Beware Of The Warden
Theo knelt at Estea’s bedside with his hands working her unresponsive legs, and his expression was a little somber while he did it. He went slowly, thumbs up the calf, palms flattening the muscle above the knee the way the instincts of the skill directed him. Her legs did not answer. They went where he put them and stayed there.
The lady sat above him, still, leaning on both her hands with her eyes closed too.
’It’s been weeks, fairly over a month now that I’ve been their husband, it’s also over the same time that Thall has been bedridden.’
His life had taken the most dramatic turn anyone’s life could take. Die. Wake up. And get married to three villainesses.
Theo did not know whether to call it luck or not.
But one thing though, he did feel lucky being able to care for them and look out for them.
And thus it made him sad that he wouldn’t be seeing them, because he was entering the Tower.
"Please stop acting like you’ll be gone for ten years."
As Estea’s cold voice cut through the tense silence of the room, Theo gulped.
"Right."
He finished massaging her and walked out, down to the sublevel to sit with Thall. The room was cool the way she needed it, and the monitor kept its slow green rhythm above her while he held one of her cold hands and did not say very much. It was at the same time that he said his goodbye to Nischov, with the old man expressing how he needed Theo to be careful, twice, in the same flat voice both times.
Afterwards he went to Sesan’s room. She was still asleep, curled in her duvet to the wall side of the bed with a lot of pillows around her, and one bare foot out where the covers had lost their argument.
Not wanting to disturb her, Theo sighed and left. After that he ordered a taxi. Instead though, what pulled up at the gate was the armored beast from the night of the Gate, low and heavy on its wheels with its headlights sunk into the grille, and Aide Lance Frost got out of it in a suit with no jacket and a coffee in each hand.
"Aide Lance?"
"Mr Theolyne."
"Did you drive out here?"
"I was around, so I thought, since we are friends, why don’t I do you a favor and give you a majestic ride to the Tower entrance."
Lance held out one of the coffees.
"Get in. You are not taking a bus to the Tower on your first entry. It is undignified and it makes the association look poor."
Theo took the coffee.
"I know you’re doing it because you want to give the Agencies the wrong idea but... thank you still."
Lance looked at the gatepost for a second longer than the gatepost deserved, and then at his own coffee.
Uthed was on the porch. Odette was at the upstairs window with her arms folded. Nischov did not come up, because he had said his piece earlier.
And in the black glass of the western wall, standing very still with her palm flat against it, was a woman who did not speak.
When Theo turned and saw she had woken up, he quickly raised his hand to her.
She did not wave. She kept her hand on the glass until the trees took the car.
The inside of the vehicle was, as before, a small luxurious room pretending to be a tank. The windows were thicker than the walls of Theo’s old flat and the door had shut with the weight of a bank vault being polite about it. Lance sat across the little table with his tie already loose at six in the morning, which Theo had come to understand was not laziness but a kind of uniform.
For the first ten minutes neither of them said anything.
Then Lance said:
"Ask."
"Ask what?"
"You have been sitting there with a question in your mouth since the gate. You do that thing with your jaw." Lance drank his coffee. "I have a forty minute journey and I would rather spend it usefully."
Theo put his cup down.
"Do you think you can help me keep an eye out on my house for the next four days, at least? I don’t plan to stay long in the Tower, I’ll deal with the first floor and be back."
The car went over a seam in the road.
"I thought it might be that. But yes of course, I would. Don’t be in a rush though. The Tower is full of surprises."
"Again, you said that you stopped climbing at floor fourteen, and Odette got seriously injured at floor fourteen. Did it happen at the same time?"
Lance did not answer for a while. Outside, the trees gave way to fence posts and then to the long grey run of the western artery.
"Well, it didn’t. She experienced its brutality far before I did."
Theo leaned in slightly.
"What then differentiates you from the people who passed floor fourteen?"
Lance shrugged.
"They were stronger, or they never bothered themselves with such nuisance as I or Madam Odette did."
He chuckled and added,
"Isn’t it too early for you to be worried about floor fourteen? You have the entry trial before you are even qualified for floor one."
Theo scrunched up his face like a child who genuinely wanted that candy but knew he didn’t necessarily need the candy yet.
The rest of the journey was peaceful after that, and they came into Yellemite around ten in the morning, and the Tower filled the window and then stopped being something you could look at.
The customs hall was a long low building at the foot of it with four channels and a queue that started outside and bent along the wall into the shade, and a departures board over the doors with rows of green text that changed while nobody watched.
Lance walked him in, which he did not have to do, and which caused three separate people in the queue to turn around and look at who was being walked in.
"Card."
Theo showed the C-rank card.
Lance nodded, once, satisfied, and did not comment.
"There’s something else I have to warn you about. Right now you can see these officers are humans right, they’re reasonable right?"
Theo glanced at the Aide, wondering.
’Why is he saying it like that, are they not reasonable inside the Tower?’
But he nodded still and Lance continued.
"In the Tower, each floor has what is called a Warden, and they make or break the rules of the trials. You have to do the entry trial to enter a floor, once you pass, you can have access to the world within, challenge dungeons, ruins, and seek for whatever riches within its expanse. The Floor Warden doesn’t have much power over you when you are in a floor, but you see the Entry Trial is the problem... please don’t offend a Floor Warden under any circumstance. They appear to you in the most unlikely manner possible as if begging you to offend them, be careful and nice to everyone."
Theo chuckled.
"That’s not a problem for me."
Lance looked like he wanted to say more but sighed and refrained.
"Just be careful."
Theo nodded.
"Thank you."
At channel three there was a man in a booth with a sandwich set down on a paper napkin at his elbow, and a woman ahead of Theo in full plate who was arguing about a spear and had been arguing about it long enough that the plate had gone warm in the queue light.
The man took the C-rank card, ran it, and did not look up.
"First entry?"
"Yes."
"Do you wish to convert any money? You can transfer it to this account, and once you enter, and create an ID it will reflect and the amount will be credited to you in Tower Gold after you pass the trial."
Theo frowned slightly.
"What if I don’t pass the trial, what happens to my money?"
The man gave Theo a mean look and took a bite of the sandwich before he used it.
"Would it matter? You’d be dead."
Theo paused for a moment and gulped.
"Understood."
"Sure you do." He handed the card back.
Theo made a little transfer to the said account, after which he gave his belongings to Lance, who would then help him take them home.
"Mr Theolyne..."
Lance had his hands full of another man’s things and no way at all to look casual about it.
"Please, take care of yourself. The Tower is dangerous."
Theo smiled respectfully.
Theo waved and went through the barrier.